


Where Luck Comes From

by Clare_Hope



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, High School Theater, M/M, Musical References, Some Plot, Some angst, Texting, lots of found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2020-10-28 00:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clare_Hope/pseuds/Clare_Hope
Summary: It's a classic case of "the show must go wrong". The Faerun High School drama club's performance of their original jukebox musical "Where Luck Comes From" seems doomed to fail when disaster upon disaster piles up during rehearsals. Is the show really just cursed with terrible luck? Or is something more sinister going on behind the scenes?





	1. Lucretia, Write That Down!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! Come find me @johannsviolin (for TAZ content) and @hopefulqueer (main) on tumblr to chat--I might also start taking fic requests there! This fic is an ensemble cast high school theater AU with lots of good wholesome found family and some romance on the side. I will attempt to update once a week, but I apologize in advance if that ends up being inaccurate. I love you and I believe in youuuuu! <3 ~Martin

Drowned out by several people all talking at once, two pens were scratching simultaneously across two pieces of paper. Both pens were held by the same person.

Lucretia was diligently taking notes as the Faerun High School drama club argued amongst themselves. She took her role as secretary very seriously, even when that meant writing down every nonsensical idea that her friends had about what their winter musical should be. One copy of her notes would stay with her, and one would be left in the cupboards in the director’s booth in case anyone ever wanted to read them someday. Her handwriting was immaculate, identical coming from either hand except for a very slight tilt from the right one. She could capture everything that was being said without the use of shorthand. As her friends would say when they bragged about her (as they often did), she was  _ just that good _ .

“And  _ I’m _ fuckin’ saying for the  _ thirteenth time _ , I would rather die than perform fucking  _ Seussical _ ,” Lup said passionately. “I don’t care how fucking cheap the rights are, Ahv. We are not having dancing jungle animals on our stage.”

“I’m with Lup,” agreed Sloane.

June, who was a freshman and had only been to two other meetings so far, raised her hand.

“June, honey, you--you don’t have to raise--this is--it’s just a conversation,” Julia told her. “What’cha thinking?”

“I just thought we had already decided that we’re not buying the rights to a show,” she said timidly. “That we’d be doing a...a jukebox musical, I think you called it?”

“Junebug has a very good point,” declared Taako. “Why the fuck are you all still arguing about what musical to do when we already definitely decided to write our own?”

“If we’re doing a jukebox, I absolutely insist that we include ‘Dancing Queen’,” Lup chimed in. “No other way to go, baby.”

“How many roles are we thinking, just like, logistically?” asked Ahvi. “‘Cause only five of the eight of us are down for acting.”

“We’ll have to open auditions to the whole school,” Sloane said.

“I can convince Magnus to audition,” offered Julia.

Taako squinted at her. “Can he act?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

“Guess we’ll find out,” she laughed. “Though surprisingly, I know he  _ can _ sing.”

“I couldn’t bribe Hurley to try out if I gave her a million bucks, sorry,” Sloane said.

“It’s fine, I’m sure plenty of people will show up to audition,” Lup said airily. “I mean, who’d miss a chance to be on stage with all of us, with our lovely lovely faces?”

“If I’m on lights and sound...Ren, darlin’, you said you wanted to do tech too, right?” Taako asked, addressing the other freshman who had showed up today with June and appeared a little starstruck when Taako looked at her.

“Um, yeah! I want to do tech,” she said.

“Lucas will help,” Lucretia said, still writing. “He told me last year that he wanted to stage manage, and though I’m not giving up that job this year for anything, someone will need to take over when I graduate. He’s insufferable, but he’s bright. With some practice, he could do it.”

“Three backstage on tech,” Taako said. “A good little number, not too crowded. I might need a second hand in the booth. I’ll get Sazed to do it.”

“Can we put ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ in the show?” Ahvi asked suddenly.

Julia giggled. “That’ll be a tone shift next to ‘Dancing Queen’.”

"We could come up with a plot first and then pick the music," Sloane said.

Lucretia briefly glanced up from her notebooks. "That does seem reasonable," she agreed.  _ Not that I'm not going to end up writing the whole script myself _ , she added silently. Every year that they had written something instead of picking a published play to perform, Lucretia had written at least ¾ of the script, interspersed with scenes and lines that the other club members had come up with. It was fine, though. She preferred it that way.

"Okay, but we have to pick  _ some _ songs first, or we'll have nothing to go on," Ahvi protested.

"I vote for '16 Going on 17' but like, ironically," Lup said. "Sung ironically."

"If we're putting in 'Can You Hear the People Sing', is it some kind of, like, revolution musical?" Ren wondered.

At that moment, Taako seemed to decide that the chairs in the theater were too boring. He slid down onto the ground and put his feet up on the wall. "Yeah. Your typical revolution musical, but set in a high school," he said. "Fuckin' genius."

Ahvi tilted his head. "Are you being sarcastic?"

"Roughly 85% of the time," answered Taako.

"...was that the 85% or the 25%?"

Lup burst out laughing. "What it's like when you're gay and a theater kid and also can't do math," she snorted.

"What?" Ahvi said.

"Pal, 85% and 25% makes 110%. It should be 15%," Lup explained.

"Oh! Wow. I'm stupid."

"Aren't you in Calculus?" asked Julia.

"Yeah. Doesn't mean I can do math."

"Regardless of  _ math _ , I wasn't actually being sarcastic there!" Taako interrupted. "Also. Lup. Nerd."

She stuck her tongue out.

"If it's about high schoolers having some sort of rebellion, we could definitely use some  _ Newsies _ songs," Julia said.

"How about no Disney," Sloane said flatly.

" _ Newsies _ barely counts as Disney, it's a Broadway musical that just happened to be made by Disney. It's not like... _ Disney _ ," Julia replied. "Plus, it's got some really good songs."

" _ Newsies _ is cool with me," said Lup. Taako, Ren, and Ahvi nodded their agreements. "Sorry, Sloane, outvoted."

"Fine."

"And we should include some other classics, like...um, 'I Got Rhythm', and maybe something from  _ Singin' in the Rain _ ," Lup continued.

"Can't do a musical about rebellious high schoolers without using  _ Footloose _ ," Ahvi said.

"I mean, you can. You definitely can. And you  _ should _ ," Taako responded.

"Actually, Koko,  _ Footloose _ isn't a bad idea," Lup said thoughtfully.

Taako scoffed. "And with that sentence, you have lost 'Koko' privilege for the rest of the day."

"Can  _ I _ have ‘Koko’ privilege if I agree that  _ Footloose _ is a terrible idea?" Sloane asked.

“Absolutely not! Fuck, no,” Taako said, sounding as if that was the most outrageous thing he had heard all week.

“Yeah, Sloane, what were you thinking?” Lup teased. “Nobody ever gets ‘Koko’ privilege other than me. I’m special.”

“You’re irritating, is what you are,” Taako muttered.

Lucretia cleared her throat. “Can we take a vote on the use of  _ Footloose _ songs?” she requested. “Show of hands. Who wants, or doesn’t care if there are,  _ Footloose _ songs in our musical?”

Ahvi, Lup, Julia, and June raised their hands.

“And who does not want to use  _ Footloose _ ?”

Sloane and Taako raised their hands, followed closely by Ren.

“My vote counts as two,” Taako announced.

Lucretia narrowed her eyes. “Why do you think that?”

“...I’m Taako?”

“Overruled.  _ Footloose _ wins.” She made a note on the papers, hiding her smile at her friend’s indignation.

“This is bullshit,” Taako said.

“Simple majority win, Taako, four to three. I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about it,” Lucretia apologized sweetly. It was getting more difficult to suppress a laugh as Lup gave her a  _ look _ .

The side door to the theater opened. “You kids doing okay in here?” asked Merle Highchurch, bearded philosophy teacher extraordinaire and technical supervisor of the theater club. Most of the time, however, he just let the students do their own thing.

Taako sat upright, legs sliding down from the wall. “Merle, I am being harassed.”

“Oh, yeah?” Merle said.

“Yes, he’s being harassed,” Lucretia informed him. “His vote only counts as one vote.”

With a sarcastic gasp, Merle said, “How horrible! Oh, dear, Taako, I’m very sorry. What would you like me to do about it?”

By now, the rest of the club was giggling behind their hands.

“Okay, first of all. Screw all of you. Taako’s out.” He stood up with a huff and started walking up the aisle to the main entrance.

Lup called after him. “Also, as if I haven’t heard you belting out ‘Holdin’ out for a Hero’ in the shower a dozen times!”

He whirled around. “That’s a fuckin’  _ banger _ and you know it!”

“So you admit it’s a banger! And it’s going in the show. Lucretia, write that down,” Lup said.

“Lucretia, do  _ not _ write that down!” Taako protested.

Lucretia shrugged. “It’s already written down.”

“Hah! It’s canon now,” laughed Lup.

“Creesh, I’ll bake you a whole batch of cookies if you don’t let ‘Holdin’ out for a Hero’ end up in our show,” Taako pleaded.

“That’s a decent offer. I’ll consider it. Can we  _ please _ move along to something else?” Lucretia said.

There was a pause of several seconds. “So, you kids are doing  _ High School Musical _ , then?” Merle asked. A chorus of loud, horrified  _ no’ _ s answered him. He laughed. “I know, I know. I’m just kidding. Sounds like you’re getting some great work done, but it is almost 5 o’clock on a Friday, and I gotta go pick up Mookie for the weekend. Let’s clear out!”

Some grumbles accompanied everyone packing up their stuff and leaving the theater. On their way out to the parking lot, Lup grabbed Lucretia’s hand and pulled her to the side. “You’re going to write it all this weekend, aren’t you?” she asked knowingly.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Lucretia replied. Then she winked.

Lup laughed, patted her on the back, and walked off towards her old car with cheap flame decals on the side, where Taako was waiting impatiently. “See you next week,” she called. “Have a good walk!”

Carefully zipping her notebook into her backpack, Lucretia started the mile-and-a-half long walk home. All of her friends had offered dozens of times to drive her home after school, but she refused each time. Walking gave her time to actually think before sitting down and writing, and she needed to do a lot of thinking for this project.  _ Nobody else is going to do it _ , she thought to herself.

By the time she got home, she was fully ready to throw herself into writing. The story had formed in her head in the last half-hour, complete with about ¾ of the songs that would eventually be in it. The others she would have to research. She tossed her jacket onto the bed, sat down at her desk, opened her notebook, and picked up a pen. Scanning the last few pages of notes that she had taken, Lucretia smiled. She drew a quick, decisive line through the words ‘Holdin’ out for a Hero’. She was going to need those cookies to deal with everything this show would throw at her.

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Mddme Director _

_ Taako, can I request those cookies for delivery? _

_ To: Mddme Director _

_ From: Taako _

_ u havnt eaten since u got home yestrday, have u? _

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Mddme Director _

_ Maybe. I’ve been working _

_ To: Mddme Director _

_ From: Taako _

_ jeez lady. ya, give ch’boy 3 hrs. EAT SOMETHING _

On Monday morning, Lucretia walked into class with barely concealed dark circles under her eyes. Lup gave her a concerned glance and bounded over just as the bell rang. “Have you like, slept? Since last Friday?” she demanded.

“I’m fine.” Lucretia brushed her off. “You and Taako are both just…”

“Mother hens? Yeah, but like, you look pretty bad, Creesh.”

“I’ll sleep tonight. Besides, look,” she added, glancing around furtively and pulling a binder out of her backpack. It was a brand-new, 2-inch ring black binder with a clear sleeve on the front cover. The white paper slipped into the sleeve read, simply, in bold black letters, “WHERE LUCK COMES FROM”.

Lup gasped. “Holy shit, Lucy! Is that the script? I wanna see!”

Before Lup could touch the binder, Lucretia snatched it away. “No, nobody is allowed to see it yet. Actually, I don’t think you get to read the whole thing until after auditions are held. You can have a copy at the first rehearsal like everyone else.”

“ _ Rude _ \--” Lup started, just as the teacher shushed them and told them to sit down for class.

Despite constant badgering from the entire drama club, as well as several people who were eager to audition as soon as the news had spread across campus, Lucretia held firm and refused to let anyone read it until she escaped into the theater after school. Merle and Davenport were waiting in the booth like she had asked them to be, ready to go over the script and discuss auditions.

“Lucretia, I gotta hand it to you. This is pretty darn amazing,” Merle told her once they had read through the whole script. “Especially knowing you wrote it in less than three days.”

“All the songs were already written for me, I just had to string them together,” Lucretia deflected.

Davenport, the music teacher who would be conducting the pit orchestra for the show, was actually wiping a tear from his eye. "Maybe so, but it's a very nice story."

"Telling a two-part tale about this girl's life half in flashbacks was really clever, Creesh. And, um, how many roles are there?" asked Merle.

Lucretia had the number ready. "Eleven named roles, but room for a small ensemble if more than that audition."

"We should have the auditions this Thursday and Friday," Davenport said.

_ That's...very soon. But he's right, there's no point in putting it off. _ "Whatever you say, Captain," Lucretia said. After about a year in any of his classes, none of Davenport's students called him Mr. Davenport anymore. They either called him Captain, Capnport, or just Dav.

"I'll get the posters printed up today and have them put up before school tomorrow, and I'll see if I can't recruit us a pit orchestra," Dav said with a smile. "And if you send me the scenes for the auditions, I'll have those printed too."

"I can do that!" Merle claimed. "I'm supposed to be supervisor of the drama club. That's my job."

"Merle, you've never done anything that could be called  _ supervising _ , let alone organizing and getting things printed. No, leave it to me." Davenport left the booth.

As Lucretia and Merle followed him out of the theater, Merle said, "You wrote that whole thing this weekend, huh?"

Lucretia nodded. "It wasn't really very difficult."

"Sure. Well, the twins both told me that you might have overstretched yourself, kiddo, so just remember to take care of yourself. You should be proud of everything that you're doing, but don't push yourself so hard that you fall.  _ You _ are more important than any writing achievement or project you've taken on."

"...thanks." Lucretia had never received one of Merle's legendary 'dad speeches' before. It lived up to its reputation. "I'm already planning to go home, do my homework, and go to sleep early. But thank you."

At home, she found it difficult to focus on her statistics homework. Her eyes kept drifting shut. She kept forcing herself back awake and considered making some caffeinated tea before Merle's words rose up in her mind.

_ Don't push yourself so hard that you fall _ .

Lucretia took a nap.

"...All through my wild days / My mad existence / I kept my promise! / Don't keep your distance." 

Julia's audition with "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from the musical  _ Evita _ was very pretty and well done, and she gave Lucretia a confident thumbs up as she headed towards the door. Then she paused. "Oh, I...I have to warn you. Magnus is next on the list, right?"

"Yeah, his name is next," Merle said.

Julia winced. "I convinced him to audition, but I...forgot to tell him that the song he sings is supposed to be from an actual Broadway musical. But please don't let that disqualify him! He's actually really good, and he's very nervous about this whole thing, so…"

"What...what song is he singing?" Lucretia asked, almost nervously. Magnus had been her best friend for two years now, and she had never heard him sing before. She trusted that Julia was right in saying that he was good, but he also had what seemed like a pretty eccentric taste in music that didn't include many Broadway soundtracks.

"Um…" Julia bit back a giggle. "'Everything is Awesome', y'know, from the  _ Lego Movie _ ."

Torn between laughing and groaning, Lucretia just nodded. "Yep. Yeah. Sounds about right."

Merle was covering his laughter with a cough.

"We'll be lenient," Davenport assured Julia. "Let him know to come in here when you get to the lobby, alright?"

"You got it."

Magnus came into the theater, shot Lucretia a grin, and hopped up on stage without bothering to use the steps. He read the audition scene. Lucretia was a little surprised at the earnestness in his voice, though she figured that she probably shouldn't have been. Magnus always threw his whole self into everything that he did. It was one of the reasons why Lucretia considered him to be her best friend.

Even the performance of the song was heartfelt. Magnus had a strong, fun baritone voice. He wasn't very polished, but that was fine. Nobody expected Broadway- worthy performances from any high schooler. When the audition was over, Magnus rushed over to hug her.

"How did I do?" he asked eagerly.

"You're squishing me, and I can't tell you anything," Lucretia replied.

"Aww." He pouted for a second before grinning again. "I think I did well! Okay, who should I send in next for you guys?"

Lucretia consulted her list, but Davenport got there first. 

"Someone named Angus McDonald," he said.

Magnus gasped happily. "Ahh, the kid! I wondered if he was gonna try out. He's taking Theater 1 with me. Lucy, have you seen him yet?"

She shook her head.

"He's like...a  _ baby _ ," Magnus told her. "I think he skipped a couple grades, he's like super young. I love that kid."

"Well, send him in," Lucretia said.  _ How young can he be? _ she wondered.

She didn't have to wait long. Into the theater came a small, nervous boy with brown skin, big round glasses, and a large mess of curly hair. He was wearing what looked like a school uniform, which was strange because their school didn't have any uniforms.

"Hello!" he squeaked.

_ Okay, Magnus is right. He is a baby.  _ "Hello, Angus," Lucretia greeted warmly.

"Oh! You already know my name, because it must be on your list." Angus beamed at her.

Refraining from asking the kid exactly how old he was, Lucretia showed him the audition form to fill out and asked what song he would be singing and if he had the accompaniment ready on his phone to plug into the speakers.

"My phone can't do that," he said, taking out an ancient flip phone.

"That's alright, I'll find it on mine," Lucretia assured him. "What song?"

"'Another Miracle of Judaism',  _ Falsettos _ ," Angus announced.

Lucretia gave him the scene to read while she found the accompaniment on her phone. It was a good song choice: short but not too short, and sung by a young boy character who was probably just a little bit older than Angus (there was no way that this kid was thirteen). Angus had a sweet, childish soprano that rang out clear through the whole song. It was a sad song, and he carried it well. Lucretia already knew exactly where she was going to cast him.

June came next, with a sweet, strikingly pretty "Somewhere over the Rainbow". A few people who Lucretia didn't know very well came next. None of them were extremely impressive, but they would make a good ensemble. Then Sloane sang "I Won't Send Roses". It was technically a song for a baritone, but her alto voice suited it well. Artemis Stirling, the principal's son, sang part of "Dancing Through Life". That wasn't the right song for his voice, but Lucretia could tell that the sophomore definitely  _ could _ sing, which was surprising. She hadn't ever considered him to be very talented, just spoiled and a bit whiny.

After Artemis left, Lucretia looked down at her list and bit back a groan. "The Vogue twins are up next," she stated.

"Ah, yes," said Dav. "Lydia and Edward."

"They signed up for one audition spot. Can we disqualify them for that?" Lucretia said hopefully.

But Merle and Davenport shook their heads.

Lydia and Edward Vogue were Lucretia's two least favorite people at the school. They were entitled, obnoxious, and liked making other people miserable. But what was worse was that they were  _ talented _ . Every year, they wormed their way into at least one lead in each semester's show. Lucretia was really hoping for some stellar auditions from new actors that she could give leads to this year.

She gritted her teeth and plastered a smile on her face as the twins sauntered down into the theater. "Hello, guys. What songs are you doing?"

Edward glanced at her disdainfully. "Actually, we're doing a duet."

Gathering the scattered remains of her patience, Lucretia said, "Audition songs are  _ solos _ . Please tell me you have solos prepared."

“No, just a duet,” Lydia insisted.

Lucretia looked over at Merle and Dav, hoping one of them would take over. The teachers sighed and let the twins do their duet, an  _ infuriatingly _ good performance of “Bop to the Top”. When they left, Lucretia loosened the white-knuckle grip she had on her notebook.

“Lup is up next,” Dav reminded her.

“Thank goodness,” Lucretia muttered.

Lup burst through the door. “What is  _ up _ , fuckers?” she called, running in and leaping up onto the stage. She plugged her phone into the speakers without prompting. “Y’all ready to fucking  _ cry _ ?”

_ Oh, no _ . Lucretia braced herself.

When Lup’s accompaniment started, a soft piano intro, she knelt down on the edge of the stage and gazed sadly off into the distance before singing. "Hands touch, eyes meet…"

Lucretia's eyes were not dry by the end of the song, "I'm Not that Girl". As she glanced over to Merle and Dav, she could see that theirs were not, either.

From Lup's grin when she turned the music off, that had been her intention. She sprang to her feet. "But wait, there's more!"

A few seconds later, she had them laughing at an exaggerated rendition of "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right out of My Hair". Lup was clearly in her element, carefully controlling her audience's emotions by controlling her own. She was always a joy to watch. Today was no exception.

"Who's next?" Merle asked. He had somehow misplaced his list about fifteen minutes ago.

"There's only two more people who signed up. Ahv is next, and then Barry." Lucretia squinted at the list. She  _ knew _ Barry Bluejeans, of course. Everyone knew Barry. He had never auditioned or done anything with the theater before, but his reputation of being a fairly quiet and shy kid until and unless he started talking about weird science preceded him. Lucretia had actually held a few conversations with him last year when they had history class together. She was curious to see his audition.

Ahvi sang a lovely baritone “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”. It was a sad song, of course, though the performance wasn’t a tear-jerker like Lup’s. He gave Lucretia a subtle thumbs up as he left.

When Barry came into the theater and introduced himself to Davenport (he already knew Merle from philosophy class), Lucretia watched him closely. To her surprise, there was no hint of nervousness in his voice or the way he held himself. He had always seemed a little bit nervous unless he was explaining or discussing the science that he was into, which had given the impression that he was a generally anxious person with one specific topic he felt comfortable opening up around. And yet here he was, perfectly at home in a theater.

Before Lucretia could try to puzzle that out, Barry was reading his scene. The way he transformed while he acted was shocking. There was absolutely no way that this kid had never been on stage before. And when he started singing, Lucretia found herself speechless.

A strong tenor voice rang out through the theater as Barry sang “All That’s Known”. He got  _ into _ it, too. Similarly to Lup, he wasn’t just singing his song to sing it for a voice audition. He acted like he was in the show, like the other actors were onstage with him. Lucretia had to remind herself not to start clapping when he was done.

She had the cast list formulating in her head already as Barry left the theater and she turned to the two teachers. “This isn’t going to a difficult decision,” she said with a small smile.

From the looks on their faces, they agreed with her.


	2. The Cast List

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cast list is going to be posted after school, which Magnus is definitely _not_ mildly terrified about. Well, maybe a little...
> 
> Okay, a lot. A lot terrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy October! Also, shana tovah, hope everyone else who celebrates Rosh Hashanah has a sweet new year! Love you guys! <3

Magnus felt a little bit sick with nerves.

He so rarely got nervous like this, he had almost forgotten what it felt like. It was a tightness in his throat, a feeling in his stomach that was less like butterflies and more like that sensation when you missed a step walking down a flight of stairs. Magnus really didn't like that feeling. He never usually had  _ time _ to get nervous before doing things, tending to act on impulses and preferring not to give much thought to things other people might consider stupid or dangerous.

When Julia had suggested that he audition with her for the play, he had agreed. Of course he had agreed. He would do anything Julia asked him to do. Some folks might not believe that meeting your soulmate in high school was possible. Magnus knew that they were wrong.

So he had auditioned. It went... _ fine _ ? He actually had no idea how it went, because he had nothing to compare it to. Julia was sure that he had done just great, and that was nice, but he still didn't really know.

Now he was facing two possibilities, and he wasn't sure which one seemed worse. He might not have gotten into the show. That would suck. He had tried so hard, and Julia really seemed excited about doing a show together. Or, equally terrifyingly, he might have gotten in. That would mean he'd have to learn to sing new songs, memorize lines, and  _ perform _ in front of an audience and not just for class. Magnus was the type of person to work for days on a woodworking project in his garage polishing up his artwork until he knew it was just right before showing it to anyone. He didn't know that he was entirely comfortable with the idea of people watching him in the act of making art that couldn't be altered after the fact.

Auditions had been yesterday. Now it was Friday, and the cast list was going to be posted after school. Lucretia wouldn't tell anyone anything, even him. When he had nervously, hopefully, approached her at lunch, he could tell just by the look on her face that she wasn't going to give him any answers.

"Sorry, Magnus. You'll see the list in a couple hours."

Luckily, Magnus's final period of the day was Theatre 1, so he wouldn't have to go very far to see the list as soon as it was posted. He wasn't the only one in the class who was a bit of a nervous wreck. Most people only took Theatre 1 to fill the arts elective requirement (honestly, Magnus was one of those people), but a couple of the kids in the class had also auditioned.

Magnus had befriended June and Angus on the very first day of class. Neither seemed to have any friends in the class, and both were sitting by themselves looking a bit dejected as Merle (technically a philosophy teacher, but he and Davenport split the theatre responsibility between themselves because there was nobody else for the job) explained that they would need to get into groups of two to four for the first project.

The two freshmen had seemed a little surprised at first that a junior like Magnus had wanted to be in a group with them. Magnus didn't have any siblings, but he had always thought that he  _ should _ have. There was some part of him that just knew he was always supposed to be a brother, and he did everything he could to make the two kids less uncomfortable and lonely. They warmed up to him quickly.

"I  _ think  _ there were fifteen people who auditioned, if I counted correctly," Angus was rambling. "And Mr. Highchurch told me that there are eleven named characters in the play, and there might be a little ensemble too. So really, everyone  _ should _ get in. Right?"

"I'm sure you're right, little buddy," Magnus said.

Angus was bouncing a little in his seat. His eyes were wide behind his glasses. "Unless someone did really, really badly. Then they might not have gotten cast."

June was clearly stuck in some kind of nervous energy feedback loop with Angus, because every time he said something about the show, she started breathing faster. That just seemed to set Angus off more.

"But I don't think I did really badly! A-and I didn't mean that either of you did, either, I just--"

Magnus held his hand up. "Ango," he said calmly.

"Yes?"

"Shush." He tapped his finger to his lips.

Angus looked down at his feet. "Sorry."

"You're freaking June out." Really, he was freaking  _ Magnus _ out, but Magnus wasn't just going to tell him that. "I am sure we will all be very happy with the cast list."

"Um." Angus squinted at him. "I think you're lying to make us feel better."

"Well, maybe I am. But there's really no point in being nervous, hm? Whatever happens, happens." Magnus patted the kid on the shoulder. Then he glanced at his watch. "And we'll know in about ten minutes, anyway."

Angus squeaked.

As soon as the bell rang, the three of them dashed over to the booth. Merle and Davenport were inside with the door closed. Magnus could hear something printing. "Is that the cast list?" he called.

"Go wait outside with everyone else, Magnus!" Merle chastised.

"Hmph." Magnus led the two freshman outside to wait by the door to the theater. A few other people who had auditioned were running over, including Julia.

She ran to him and kissed him. "Hi! Are you excited?" she asked breathlessly.

"Excited to see you, yes," he answered, taking a moment to gaze at her fondly. Every time he saw her, he felt so much love that he thought he might just explode some day.

Julia laughed. "You're sappy, I saw you at lunch," she teased.

"Speaking of lunch, did you hear that Lup and Edward got into a shouting match?" Sloane said to them as she approached. "It was  _ bad _ , guys. Lup doesn't lose it like that. When I heard them at first, I thought it was Taako yelling."

Magnus's eyes widened. "Lup was fighting?"

"What was the problem?" Julia wondered.

Sloane kind of shrugged. "Lup was just tearing him a new one. He was trying to give back just as good as he got but you know Lup. She doesn't let anyone get a word in edgewise if she doesn't want to hear them."

"But what were they fighting about? Is Lup okay?" Magnus asked. "Did Edward say something about Taako?"  _ That's the most likely reason why Lup would get that angry _ .

Julia looked over to the right. "We could ask her."

Magnus turned to look. Sure enough, Lup and Taako were walking over to the theater. Lup was fuming. Taako was talking quietly to her, probably trying to calm her down.

"You guys good?" Sloane called.

Lup stomped up and crossed her arms. "No."

"Yes," Taako disagreed. "We're fine. My sister is just having a moment."

"I'm having a--a whole fucking  _ day _ ," Lup retorted. "I can't believe I have to be in rehearsals for a show for two months with him--that fucking-- _ jeez _ , he's got some fucking chutzpah, I can tell you."

"Edward?" Sloane checked.

At the mention of his name, Lup bristled. "I have never met anyone else quite as obnoxious, and I am counting myself and Taako amongst the people I've met."

Taako held his hands up. "Leave me out of this, homie, Taako's good out here."

"What even happened?" asked Julia. 

Lup started to explain, looking around to make sure that the Vogue twins weren't approaching. "Edward insulted Lucretia," she said.

Just those three words made Magnus want to go fight Edward as well. He managed to keep his cool as Julia touched his arm, listening to the rest of what Lup had to say.

"He asked me if I really thought that Creesh should be involved in the casting because she can't be impartial since she's friends with the drama club," Lup explained. "And then insinuated that she should have been satisfied with writing the thing, that she was being pretentious and selfish by wanting to be student director and stage manager as well."

"Are you kidding? Every single one of our shows would have fallen flat if she hadn't taken on five different jobs!" Sloane said hotly.

"He should be grateful that she let him and Lydia audition at all after they came with only a duet prepared," Julia said.

"That's what I told him!" Lup exclaimed.

"It's what you  _ shouted _ at him," Taako remarked, examining his fingernails. "Loudly. Very loudly. With a lot of swear words interspersed in between the other words."

"I thought you said you were gonna stay out of this," Lup said with a glare.

"Look, I'm just saying. You were definitely the one to blow up the whole situation, it didn't need to get that intense," Taako said.

Lup spun around towards him. "Are you taking  _ Edward's _ side in this?!"

Taako gasped. " _ Fuck _ no!"

"Then what--"

"You almost punched him, Lu! You don't-- _ you _ don't do that." Taako winced and looked away. "It kinda worried me."

Lup deflated. "Yeah. I'm sorry."

"Don't get me wrong, he deserved to be punched. But you'd've been suspended and kicked outta the show, and then where would we be?" continued Taako.

"Well, I  _ didn't  _ punch him," muttered Lup. "So there."

"Here they come," Sloane whispered.

The Vogue twins were coming over, arm in arm. "Is the list up?" Lydia asked loudly.

"Does it look like the list is up yet? No. Have some damn patience," Sloane replied.

Just then, Lucretia ran up to the waiting actors. "Give me a minute," she said quickly, and then darted into the theater.

Magnus had another pang of anxiety. "Jules, what if I didn't get in?" he whispered to his girlfriend, who patted his cheek sympathetically.

"I think you're okay," she replied. "Just take a deep breath, darling."

Next to him, Angus was also having a rough time. He seemed like he could hardly breathe, and he jumped about a foot into the air as Lup placed a well-meaning hand on his shoulder. "Sorry!"

"Calm down, kid, you'll be just fine," Lup told him.

He nodded, but didn't look like he believed her.

About a minute of tense silence passed before Lucretia came back out of the theater, followed closely by Merle and Dav. Lucretia was carrying an innocuous piece of white paper and a few pieces of tape, which she used to stick the paper up to the door at eye level.

Immediately, there was a bit of a stampede to get to the list. "Move," Lydia ordered, shoving June out of the way. 

Magnus grabbed the freshman so she didn't fall over and glared at Lydia. "You okay?" he asked June quietly. She nodded.

Before Magnus could react further, Lydia and Edward had both turned around and were stomping out to the parking lot. Both of them looked furious.

"What's up with them?" Sloane wondered, stepping up more calmly to view the list. "Oh, neat, I'm listed as 'female lead's best friend'."

Angus had to stand on his toes to see the list, but he made a happy sound as he read. "I got in! I'm 'little brother'!"

"Do the characters not have names?" Magnus asked.

Lucretia shook her head. "Not yet. You can name them if you want. We'll be doing a lot of character and script work as a team. Have you looked yet?"

Julia was pulling Magnus up to view the list. They saw their names at the same time, Julia listed right above Magnus. Their characters were credited as "Mother" and "Father". Below them, June and Angus were listed as "young female lead" and "little brother".

"Does this mean we're the kids' parents?" Magnus said, delighted.

"Yes, that's correct," Lucretia laughed.

"Sweet! Hey, Ango, I'm your dad now!"

Angus gave him a wide grin. "Okay, sir!"

Meanwhile, Lup was quite literally punching the air with happiness. " _ Yes! Yes! Fuck yes! _ " she exclaimed. "Hey, Lucretia, I love you!"

"Love you too," Lucretia told her with a smile. "Your audition blew all three of our minds, you know. There was nobody better suited for the part."

Listed right at the top of the paper was Lup's name, attached by ellipses to the words "female lead". Second on the list was Barry Bluejeans, "male lead".

"Barold is in the play?" Magnus said, surprised.

Taako walked up to the list and squinted at it. "Barold is playing a  _ lead _ ?! Lucretia, this is a typo, yes?"

"No, it is not a typo. Frankly, I'm insulted that you consider me capable of making a typo," Lucretia deadpanned. "Barry gave a phenomenal audition, and I hope that you don't make him feel unwelcome just because it's his first show."

"Are you sure my sister won't, um, outshine him?" Taako giggled. "Because he seems pretty dull."

Lucretia folded her arms across her chest and gave Taako a stern look. "I personally think they will be very well matched."

_ To: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ From: Lup-de-lup _

_ YOOOO HOLY FUCK DUDE ARE U ON SNAPCHAT RN _

_ To: Lup-de-Lup _

_ From: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ ????? Not currently _

_ To: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ From: Lup-de-Lup _

_ LYDIA IS HAVIN A WHOLE FUCKIN MELTDOWN ANND TELLIMG THE WHOLE SHCOOL ABOIT IT SKDHDHSJ _

_ THIS IS SAD BUT ALSO HILARIOUS _

_ Why is she snapping the whole thing she's literally got mascara running down her face?! Just bc she didnt get a lead, I'm cry-laugjing _

_ I almost feel? Bad for her. Oops. _

_ To: Lup-de-Lup _

_ From: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ She's playing ur character's rival yeah? This is gonna be reeeeeally interesting _

_ To: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ From: Lup-de-Lup _

_ yEP _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm @johannsviolin on tumblr! This is an open invitation for anyone to come and chat with me there about TAZ or anything else. Comments are much appreciated and encourage me to keep posting. Thank you for reading! <3


	3. An Ink Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako has a rough day. The week gets worse when he embarrasses himself in front of the piano player he definitely _does not_ have a crush on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said somewhere that I was going to post this yesterday but I fell asleep before I could, sorry! Hope you enjoy! Y'all like Taakitz, right? <3
> 
> A warning for this chapter: some mild transphobic remarks, implications of childhood neglect and food insecurity (the twins had a rough childhood)

Taako had his head down on his desk. Last night, he and Lup had made the (terrible, in hindsight) decision to binge-watch the entire new season of the Great British Baking Show, and they hadn’t gone to bed until about 4:30 in the morning. He was pretty sure he had slept through all of English 4, and had dreams about trying desperately to come up with a new cupcake recipe while someone read  _ As I Lay Dying _ out loud. The sentence “My mother is a fish.” was repeated several times. Suddenly, the cupcakes were decorated alternately with little colorful fish and hearts with the words “#1 Mom” on them. He woke up when the bell rang, confused and more than a little irritated.

Now he was trying to keep his eyes open during AP Chemistry, which apart from Home Ec (it was his fourth year taking it, and by now the teacher knew better than to try to make him do anything other than mess around in the kitchen) was the only class he actually cared about. He propped his head up on his hand and pretended like he was taking notes.

After class, he was eager to rush out to lunch and steal some of Lup’s energy drink. He never actually brought one himself, claiming that they were gross and unhealthy, but he had a few sips of hers more often than not. As he was heading to the door, though, the teacher motioned for him to come over to her desk.

“Listen, if this is about the lab write-up, I really did mean to take out the phrase ‘side note, why did it fucking turn red, it was not supposed to do that’ before I printed it out,” Taako let her know.

“I haven’t read the lab reports yet, but thanks for the head’s up,” she sighed. “Actually, I was going to ask you if you’re alright, Taako.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Why.”

“You don’t usually sleep through my class. If something is happening...at home, or--”

“Oh.” Now Taako was a bit annoyed. A few of his teachers knew a little about his and Lup’s home life, and they always assumed that something was going on whenever he acted strange. “Nah, everything’s just  _ great _ at home, Ma’am. You don’t need to worry about ol’ Taako, I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“If you need to, you can always go talk to the couns--”

“I’m serious, Lulu and I literally just stayed up too late watching TV. Which, y’know, sure, maybe our irresponsibility comes out of not having a stable parent figure, but also, it’s not really anyone else’s fucking business, is it?” Taako left the classroom without giving her a chance to respond.

Already in a bad mood, Taako glared at everything and everyone who came into his sight. Several freshman and sophomores fully leapt out of the way at the look on his face. He was feeling marginally better as he passed the theater, thinking about rehearsal that afternoon, when he saw Lydia and Edward talking with a few of their friends. He wasn’t going to acknowledge them. Then he heard what Lydia was saying.

“I’m just  _ saying _ , it’s not fair, y’know? I should have gotten the lead. We’ve never done a musical before, so it hasn’t  _ really _ been a problem, but...can she even sing a girl’s part?”

White-hot fury rose up behind Taako’s eyes. He marched over to Lydia and said, way too calmly, “What was that? I think I must have misheard you.”

“Ohhh, hey, Taako!” Lydia said with a fake, sickly-sweet smile. “I didn’t mean anything by it, you know--I mean, you  _ know _ I love her! I was just wondering if she could really handle, um, a soprano’s part.”

Instead of dignifying the statement with an actual response, Taako burst into song. In a perfect imitation of Christine from  _ The Phantom of the Opera _ , in the correct octave, he sang, “Wishing you were somehow here again! Wishing you were somehow near. Sometimes it seemed, if I just dreamed, somehow you would be here!”

The Vogue twins and their friends stared at him, shocked and maybe just a little impressed.

He dropped the act. “Lup and I can both sing whatever the fuck parts we want in any song, so how about you  _ shut the fuck up _ and accept that she got the lead because you and your brother performed a damn duet for your audition. And also because she’s a better fucking actor than you. Grow up, Lydia.” And then Taako flipped her off and walked away.

“Oh, no,” Lup called, the instant she saw him walking up to the spot underneath the tree behind the math building where they always ate lunch. Magnus, Julia, and Lucretia were there as well. “Oh, that is more than just ‘I didn’t get enough sleep’ pissed-off. What happened?”

“You don’t want to know,” he muttered, and plopped down on the grass next to her. He took her energy drink without asking and downed half of what was left in the can before handing it back.

“‘Can I have some of your drink, Lup?’ ‘Sure, Taako, why not?’” Lup said.

“You don’t even like those,” Magnus observed as Taako made a disgusted face at the taste of the drink.

“Yeah, ‘cause they’re fuckin’ nasty, but I needed  _ something _ if I’m gonna have to stay at school until 5:00 for rehearsal.” Taako pulled a sandwich out of his backpack. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Lucretia asked.

“Sleep-deprived me made a fuckin’ peanut butter sandwich. Apparently, sleep-deprived me has a death wish. Someone please take this so I don't eat it anyway.” Taako handed the sandwich to Magnus, who reached for it eagerly. “Thank you.”

“Why do you two even  _ have _ peanut butter in the house?” Julia wanted to know. "You're both allergic."

Lup and Taako exchanged glances. “I can eat a couple spoonfuls before getting hives,” Lup replied.

“But why--”

“Drop it,” Taako advised.

Lucretia cleared her throat. “Also, we’re just doing a quick read-through today in rehearsal. We’ll be out of there by 4:30.”

"Great, that means half an hour more napping." Taako rubbed his eyes. "Can't come soon enough."

Lup eyed him. She surreptitiously tapped him on the inside of his wrist twice.  _ What's wrong? _

He traced an  _ x _ on her palm.  _ Nothing. _

She traced two  _ x _ s back.  _ I don't believe you. _

A circle on the back of her wrist.  _ Later. _

Lup ended the conversation with a decisive tap on the back of his hand.  _ Fine, I'll accept that. _

In the fifteen seconds in which the exchange took place, Magnus had finished the sandwich and turned to Lucretia. "You haven't told us much about the show, Creesh. Is there anything you  _ can _ tell us?"

"Like I said, we'll be doing a read-through in rehearsal. Hm, let's see...what can I tell you? It's about a girl growing up, half in flashbacks. I suppose it's a bit of a coming-of-age musical." Lucretia handed Taako a granola bar. "No peanuts in this."

Taako opened his mouth, trying to decide whether to refuse her or thank her, but she kept talking before he could do either.

"And the characters don't have names yet. You guys can decide them as a group, it didn't matter much when I was writing it," she explained. "Little June is playing the younger version of Lup's character."

"Wait, so Mags and I are Lup's parents, too?" Julia exclaimed. She laughed. "I love this."

"Yes, but you two live in the flashbacks, so you never interact with Lup. The only person who travels between the flashbacks and the present day, other than ensemble, is Angus. He's just 'little brother' the whole time. He doesn't show up in the present day until the end, though, getting rid of any doubts the audience might have had about whether June and Lup are supposed to be the same people," Lucretia said.

Lup leaned forward, intrigued. "Okay, and what about this Bluejeans dude? First of all, is that his actual last name?"

Taako looked at her with some incredulity. "Do you not know who Barry Bluejeans is?" he demanded.

"I mean, I've heard the name. Don't think I ever had a class with him."

"That's hilarious. Okay, so  _ yes _ , his last name is actually Bluejeans, and  _ yes _ , he always wears blue jeans, and  _ no _ , we don't know if it's a coincidence or if the guy really does have that good of a sense of humor because he doesn't really talk to many people," Taako said.

Julia shrugged. "I've talked to him a few times. He seems pretty cool."

Lucretia frowned. "Did he ever mention being interested in theater before?"

"Not that I remember," said Julia. "I'm actually a little surprised that he got the lead. Was his audition that good?"

"Yes," Lucretia said with a nod. "It was that good."

"I didn't see him come by to check the cast list. Does he know he got it?" asked Magnus.

"He came by a few minutes after you had all left. He didn't say much, but he seemed pretty pleased with the whole thing. I really think he's going to surprise you all with his performance. He has a lot of talent."

"Looking forward to meeting him," Lup said. Then she giggled. " _ Bluejeans… _ "

_ To: Me but nerdier _

_ From: Me but with sick flames _

_ lucy's script is great and all but I'd literally rather be taking a nap rn _

_ To: Me but with sick flames _

_ From: Me but nerdier _

_ i mean same _

_ To: Me but nerdier _

_ From: Me but with sick flames _

_ Hey am I *nuts* or is Bluejeans. Cute _

_ To: Me but with sick flames _

_ From: Me but nerdier _

_ GROSS _

_ To: Me but nerdier _

_ From: Me but with sick flames _

_ BUT HE IS THO _

_ i like his face _

_ And Lucy is right, he can act _

_ Koko. I. Am. Not. Wrong. _

_ To: Me but with sick flames _

_ From: Me but nerdier _

_ I literally didnt kno that ur into nerds _

_ What is happening????? how am I learnkng something new about u after literally 18 yrs being ur twin????? _

_ To: Me but nerdier _

_ From: Me but with sick flames _

_ ...but do u agree that he is kind of cute? _

_ To: Me but with sick flames _

_ From: Me but nerdier _

_ sure, if ur into nerds wearing blue denim. which apparently you are? GROSS _

_ To: Me but nerdier _

_ From: Me but with sick flames _

_ Fashion sense aside, he IS cute and im standing by my assessment no matter how much u try to shame me. _

Dozing on the rug of the room that he shared with Lup, Taako scooted closer to the window to try and stay in the last patches of sunlight for the afternoon. Lup came into the room and sat cross-legged next to him. She had brought a mug of peppermint tea. The sweet, sharp scent woke Taako up fully, which he wasn't thrilled about.

"What?" he grumbled. "I'm napping."

She nudged his shoulder. "Is it  _ later _ yet?"

"Oh for--" Taako sat up. "It really  _ wasn't  _ a big deal, my chem teacher said something dumb and then Lydia said something ignorant and I had to yell at her. And I'm tired, so it pissed me off."

"Okay, I'll accept that explanation." She sipped her tea. "Unless you want to tell me more."

"Can I have some?"

"Go make your own tea, nerd. I left some hot water for you."

Taako rolled his eyes, but went and grudgingly made himself some tea, plucking some leaves off the live mint plant on the counter and tossing them into the water. "We need more interesting mugs," he told her as he came back into their room.

Lup glanced down at her plain red mug, then at Taako's white and pink checkered one. "I mean, fair enough. I fully give you permission to buy a couple of funny mugs next time you're at a thrift store."

"Noted." Taako swirled the mint leaves around in his mug. "So...Bluejeans, huh?"

"I stand by what I said, he's cute!" Lup insisted.

"You do you, fam. But like...Bluejeans. His name is Bluejeans and also that's all he wears. You have weird taste."

"Listen, I don't tease you mercilessly about your crush on that one kid who was emo in middle school and now plays the piano in orchestra," Lup stated.

Taako's ears turned pink. "I do  _ not _ \--" he sputtered.

"Oooh, don't you dare lie to my face, Taako," Lup snickered. "Besides, I don't need you to confirm it. He'll be coming to rehearsal tomorrow with the rest of the pit orchestra to pick up the score now that Capnport has put it together. I see how you get when he walks into the room. You can't take your  _ eyes  _ off him."

"I am being  _ attacked _ !" Taako yelped, scrambling to his feet. "Come find me when you're willing to play nice."

"You can dish it out, but you can't take it!" Lup called after him in a sing-song voice.

"Fuck you!" Taako replied, running into the living room to hide. Lup's entirely accurate assessment of his crush on that piano player had made his whole face flush. He drank some of the hot tea, which did not help, and sent a silent prayer to whatever higher power might be out there, asking the universe to please stop him from embarrassing himself too badly tomorrow at rehearsal.

The universe must not have heard him. In the theater the next afternoon, Taako was perched on the stool in the booth, fiddling with the lights to catalogue all of the programmed cues. Much to the irritation of the actors who were trying to block the first few scenes, that meant he had to bring the lights up and down a couple times every minute.

"For  _ fuck's _ sake, Taako!" Lup shouted after the theater went mostly dark once again.

He grinned and flipped on the god mic. "I am the master of darkness," he said in a deep voice. "I control the day and the night." The freshman, who had never experienced the god mic before, yelped with shock.

"You're scaring the babies," called Magnus.

"Eh, just a bissel, they'll be fine!" Taako turned the mic off and brought the lights back up using the next cue. This one was mostly red and a little bit eerie. "Oh, nice," he muttered to himself as he jotted it down on the paper he was using to keep track of the different cues. "4-2-7...spooky red mood lighting. Ah, shit." He just noticed that the pen he was using had leaked all over his fingertips. "Ugh. Yick." He grabbed some tissues to try and get the ink off before it stained too badly.

There was a soft tap at the door to the booth.

"Hold on  _ just _ a second, fam, we've got an ink situation here!" Taako said, assuming it was Ren or Lucretia coming to check on the lights thing.

"Can I just grab my score? Davenport said it would be sitting right next to the printer," a voice responded, sounding a little confused as to what an  _ ink situation _ might be. "I can come back later, if…"

Taako quickly tossed the tissues into the garbage can, cursing the universe and luck and himself. "Oh, yeah, sure! Door's unlocked, come right on in and grab it, my dude."

The door opened, and the prettiest boy in school (apart from Taako himself, of course) stepped inside. "Thanks, I really needed to get the score. Oh, there it is," Kravitz said. He picked up the folder next to the computer labeled  _ Piano Score _ in Davenport's neat but scrawling handwriting.

"Mm-hmm!" Taako said, embarrassingly squeaky. "Gotta get that sheet music, am I right?"  _ Hey, Taako, what the fuuuuuck are you saying?! _ he thought.

But Kravitz laughed. "Yeah, you're right. Hey, the show looks like it's going to be a lot of fun this year. It's very cool that Lup got the lead."

Taako nodded. "Yeah, yeah, she's gonna be fabulous. Music's cool too, though Lucretia managed to slip a  _ Seussical _ song in there despite every single person in the known universe begging her not to. I mean, it actually sort of fits--not that that's surprising, because Lucy is a genius--but  _ anyway. _ " Taako realized very swiftly that he did not have anything to say to follow up that  _ anyway _ .

"I haven't looked through all the songs yet, but I'm sure they all work well." He smiled at Taako. "Nice to see you, Taako."

"Nice to--yep!" Taako agreed.

"Oh, um, hope you get that ink situation cleared up," Kravitz added, gesturing to something on Taako's face before waving a quick goodbye and leaving the booth, already flipping through the pages in the folder.

A rush of heat and mortification hit Taako all at once as he realized that he had absentmindedly rubbed his nose a few minutes ago and that in all likelihood the pen had already leaked onto his hand. "Oh,  _ fuck _ , no," he groaned, putting his head in his hands because  _ I can't make it any fucking worse at this point, might as well. _

"Hey, yo, Taako, can we get some fuckin' uhhh,  _ not _ murder lights down here?" yelled Lup.

Taako flipped the house lights back on without looking up. He gave up on cataloging the cues for today.

"Rehearsal is over, my dude, are you alive up here, or…" Lup said as she pushed open the booth door an hour later.

"Don't look at me," he mumbled.

"Huh?"

He raised his head. "I had an ink situation," he said bleakly.

Lup's eyes widened as she tried not to laugh. "Oof, got a little bit of schmutz there, buddy?" She grabbed a tissue and reached out to rub at the side of his nose with it.

Taako ducked out of the way. "Get off!"

"Oh, jeez, Koko, that's pretty rough," she giggled. "Is it gonna come off?"

"It fuckin' better, or I'm skipping school tomorrow."

Rolling her eyes, Lup took his arm and made him walk with her out to the car. "You are not, we have enough concealer and foundation in the house to cover up an entire squid worth of ink on your face."

"It's the principle of the thing," Taako grumbled, but he managed to scrub most of the large blue stains off of his nose and his forehead in the shower that evening. A little bit of makeup easily covered the rest. He could not, however, wipe away or cover up the worst stain: the one on his pride.


	4. Things Could Be Worse!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry gets to know his castmates a little better. The theater has a very dark day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a day late, but my excuse is that I've been extremely busy with rehearsal for the show that I am currently stage managing for my community theater--it's tech week, oh boy! I haven't been home before 11 PM all week. After I post this, it's gonna be gnight from me! <3
> 
> Warnings: nothing major this chapter. Some anxiety, fear of the dark, a discussion that briefly mentions past instances of transphobia

"That was really good, you three. Just one note here. Magnus?" Lucretia called from her seat in the house to the actors currently running their scene.

Magnus waved at her. "Yeah?"

"You have very high energy throughout this whole scene, which is nice. However, sometimes, we as an audience…well, we can get worn-out by consistent high energy. We can find a few moments in there to bring the exuberance down a few notches without losing the energy entirely," Lucretia explained.

Barry stopped paying attention to the discussion. The rehearsal had been entirely flashbacks so far today, which meant a lot of stage time for Magnus, Julia, and June, but left him sitting around without much to do. He allowed his gaze to drift over to the twins (the less obnoxious pair in the show, that is), who were lounging on the floor.

Taako had his head in his sister's lap. He technically didn't have to be at rehearsals yet, because they didn't use the sound and light board until tech week. However, as Barry had quickly learned, the twins were inseparable...and Lup was the only one who could drive. They lived within walking distance, but Taako was, in his own words, too lazy to walk when he could lay around through rehearsal and wait for her to drive home.

“Let’s move on to scene two,” Lucretia said. “Can I get Lup, Sloane, and Edward on stage?”

Lup shoved Taako unceremoniously off her lap as she stood up. He sprawled onto his back. “You’ve wounded me,” he said dryly.

“Cry me a river,” she replied. “Hey, Luce, I think I’m off-book for this scene, but I may have to call for a line in a couple spots.”

“No problem. Thanks for getting off-book so quickly.” Lucretia flipped a few pages through her script and got her pens ready to start taking notes.

Barry leaned onto the back of the chair in front of him, watching as the actors ran through the scene. Lup’s character was having what could be referred to as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. She was in the middle of lamenting the injustices of the school system when Edward’s character came over to try and flirt with her.

“Look, I’m really not in the mood to chat,” Lup’s character said politely.

“Hey, maybe I can turn your frown upside down,” Edward responded.

“I’d rather keep frowning.”

Edward sat down next to her, tossing his hair back. “You know, you’d feel a lot better if you stopped being so glum all the time!”

“You do know that’s...not how the world works, right?” Sloane asked him.

Lup interrupted the scene. “Luce, do we have the soundtrack? Are we doing the song today?” They had worked out the blocking for the song yesterday.

“Yes, we can do that. Taako, I know you don’t actually have to be here, but could you--”

“Yeah, yeah, ch’boy can do that.” Taako hopped to his feet and got the music ready to play through the speakers.

“You know the cue to start the music, right?” Edward checked. “I don’t want to have to do it multiple times.”

Taako glared. “ _ Yes _ , I know the cue--”

He was clearly going to tack some sort of insult onto the end, but Lucretia cleared her throat and said, “Let’s take it back to Lup’s line ‘I’d rather keep frowning’.”

“I’d rather keep frowning,” Lup said.

“You know, you’d feel a lot better if you stopped being so glum all the time!”

“You do know that’s not how the world works, right?” said Sloane.

“It can be!”

The music started.

Edward stood up. “You just have to decide that you want it to be.  _ When the news is all bad, when you’re sour and blue, when you start to get mad, you should do what I do! _ ”

Lup glanced at Sloane. “Is this guy serious?”

“ _ Tell yourself how lucky you are! _ ”

The song was, unfortunately, quite catchy. It had been stuck in Barry's head since the first rehearsal it had been sung during last week.

" _ Why decry a cloudy sky? An empty purse, a crazy universe? My philosophy is simply: things could be worse! _ "

During the scene, Edward pursued the other two characters around the stage as they attempted to slip away. At the end of the song, he pretended to hand Lup’s character his phone number and winked before walking off-stage.

“I feel significantly worse now,” stated Lup. “And I definitely don’t feel lucky.”

“You can say that again,” Sloane replied.

Lup mimed tearing up the nonexistent prop and throwing it over her shoulder. “I definitely don’t feel lucky,” she repeated. “And--um...line?”

“‘Don’t you have to--’” Lucretia read off.

“Don’t you have to get home soon?” Lup remembered.

“Sure do. Call me if you’re still having a bad day later and want to talk!” Sloane exited stage left.

“Are we going on to the next scene?” Lup asked.

Barry prepared to stand up if he was supposed to get on stage.

“Let’s take it from the beginning of this one again, then continue,” Lucretia said.

When Barry finally got to go on stage, he waited in the wings while Sloane walked off, watching as Lup sat down on the apron with her legs dangling off the side of the stage. He glanced down at his script, reminding himself of the lines before closing it and heading over to her. “Bad day?”

“Oh, please, not you too. If I have to listen to someone else tell me to just look on the bright side, I might scream.”

Barry laughed. “I wasn’t going to say that.” He sat down on the stage next to her.

He liked this scene. It was his first scene in the show, and it was quieter than most of the rest of the show. There were no songs, just a conversation between two people who didn’t know each other very well. His character had also been having a bad day, and the two of them were finding a moment of ‘slightly less terrible than everything else’ with each other before parting.

“I think we need to call it a day,” Lucretia said after the second run-through of the scene. “It’s almost 5:00, but we’ll do notes next rehearsal before running all of Act One that we know. See you all tomorrow.” She began packing up her notes.

“Hey, I’m gonna wait at the car!” Taako called to Lup. “Don’t take too long, I’ve got a date with the stovetop. I think I’m gonna make pancakes for dinner.” He left the theater.

Barry went over to his backpack and put his script away. As he was leaving, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Lup.

“Hey!” she said cheerfully. “Are you going out to the parking lot?” When he nodded, she said, “Walk with me!”

He would be lying if he said that his heart didn’t beat a little faster at the prospect of actually chatting with Lup out-of-character. He didn’t know exactly what to say as they walked out towards the lobby.

“So hey, I have to ask,” Lup started.

“Is it about the last name?” sighed Barry. It usually was when people started the question like that.

“Nah, although that sure is  _ something _ , isn’t it? No, I was gonna ask where you did theater before. ‘Cause Creesh said that she had never seen you do anything at the high school, but that she was sure during your audition that you must have done acting before,” Lup said.

Barry was a little surprised. “I mean, who knows? I might have never done anything like this before,” he said with a smile.

She stopped walking and put a hand up to his chest to keep him there as well. “I don’t think I believe that, y’know?”

“I guess my cover’s blown, then,” chuckled Barry. “I started doing community theater when I was... _ eight _ ? I think? But I haven’t done any shows since I was a freshman.”

“Why not? You know you’re really good, right?”

Barry shrugged. “Too busy with school. Too anxious. Too caught up in societal conventions about what a nerdy, science-loving boy is supposed to do during high school. Take your pick.”

Lup tilted her head appraisingly. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t’cha?

Trying not to get distracted by the way the afternoon sunlight was captured and sparkled in her dark brown eyes, Barry said, “So I’ve been told, though it’s usually not a compliment...and I’m  _ fairly _ sure that one was?”

“Very perceptive.” Lup smiled. “So why’d you get back into theater?”

“Less busy with school, less anxious, less caught up in social conventions. Take your pick,” he reprised. “Alternatively: why not?”

That got a laugh. Lup put her hand on his shoulder as she grinned at him. “Good answer. Now I’ve got another question.”

“What’s that?”

“Is your full name  _ really _ Barold J. Bluejeans?”

“Does it matter?” Barry said, trying to joke.

Lup blinked. The smile faltered on her face. “Oh," she said quietly.

Suddenly, Barry got the sense that he had said something wrong. “Um, I mean...oh, shoot, I’m sorry, I don’t...did I just mess up?” The afore-mentioned anxiety was rising up in his throat.

She was quick to shake her head. “No! No, no, actually,  _ I _ did. I should know better than to ask people about their ‘real’ names. Sorry.” Lup gave his shoulder a brief squeeze. “Anyway, Taako’s probably gonna flip more than pancakes if I take much longer over here. Talk to you tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow,” he said, and watched her walk away.

_ To: Lucretia (SM) _

_ From: Barry (lead) _

_ Hi! I’m sorry for texting you so late, but something has been bothering me and I’m not sure who else to ask. _

_ To: Barry (lead) _

_ From: Lucretia (SM) _

_ What’s bothering you? Is it about the show? _

_ To: Lucretia (SM) _

_ From: Barry (lead) _

_ Not exactly… _

_ I think I might have said something wrong earlier when I was talking to Lup. _

_ To: Barry (lead) _

_ From: Lucretia (SM) _

_ Hm. What did you say? _

_ To: Lucretia (SM) _

_ From: Barry (lead) _

_ She asked me if this was really my name and I said “Does it matter?” and she got very quiet and I think she might have been uncomfortable? She said something about how she should know better than to ask about someone’s real name _

_ Did I screw up? I don’t want to make things awkward in the cast, but I really have no idea what I did wrong _

_ I’ve been freaking out pretty much all evening. Sorry for bothering you _

_ To: Barry (lead) _

_ From: Lucretia (SM) _

_ Ahh. No, Barry, you didn’t do anything wrong. _

_ But I’d suggest talking to Lup privately tomorrow about this before rehearsal. She certainly wouldn’t want you feeling bad about it, however--in fact, I’d say that she probably feels a bit guilty as well. _

_ It’ll be alright. _

_ To: Lucretia (SM) _

_ From: Barry (lead) _

_ Thanks, I appreciate it :) _

Despite Lucretia's reassurance that it would be alright, Barry felt more than a little nervous as he headed to the theater a few minutes early the next day. He saw the twins walking and rushed over to intercept them.

"Well, hello, Barold," Taako greeted.

"Hi. Um, Lup? Can I talk to you for a minute?" Barry asked quickly.

There was a brief pause. Barry had a strange feeling that an entire conversation between the twins had just happened in the span of about ten seconds, though neither of them said anything or even looked at each other.

"Sure," Lup told him. Taako let go of her hand and headed into the theater, glancing back over his shoulder once to look at Barry warily. "What's up?"

"I just…" Barry took a deep breath. "I can't help but feel like I really said something wrong yesterday when we were talking after rehearsal. And I'm not sure exactly what it was, so maybe my apology is pretty empty, but...I'm sorry."

"Oh-- _ no _ , Barry, I thought I told you yesterday that you did nothing wrong!" Lup exclaimed.

"Well, you said that, but...I could tell that you were uncomfortable."

"Seriously, not your fault," promised Lup. "Hey, okay. Listen. The whole name thing...I just felt stupid for asking you a question that I  _ always _ hate being asked. Felt a little hypocritical. Like, it's none of my business, yeah? But I asked anyway, 'cause I was trying to...be funny, or whatever."

"I don't really mind the question, I just don't...I mean, I don't mind being  _ asked _ , I just don't like answering." Barry frowned. "Wow, that made no sense, sorry. I meant--"

"No, I get it." She touched his arm. "Again, I just feel kinda hypocritical. Like, the  _ irony _ of a trans girl asking someone 'is that your real name'. So yeah,  _ definitely  _ not anything you did wrong."

_ Wait--OH, now it makes sense. Holy shit, I'm dense. _ "I didn't know you're trans," he blurted out.  _ Well, FUCK, that's definitely not the right reaction! _

Instead of getting uncomfortable, Lup burst out laughing. " _ Really _ ?! Taako and I are literally identical, you didn't question that? Dude, I talk about it all the time. That's actually kinda hilarious, it's not like I'm trying to hide it. You must have been the only person at school who didn't know."

_ That...went better than I could have expected. _ "The name thing definitely makes more sense now," he said.

"Yeah, now I get why you thought you'd said something wrong. C'mon, fam, let's get to rehearsal before Lucretia sends a search party out." Lup slung her arm around his shoulders comfortably as they walked towards the theater. "So we're good now, yes?"

"Definitely," he assured her. He reached for the door to the theater just as Taako opened it from the inside.

"Bad fuckin' news, pals, we got a damn power outage in there," Taako announced.

"What?!" Lup yelped. "How? The rest of the school is still fine!"

Merle nudged Taako to the side to talk to them. "Theater's got a separate grid of some sort. We've got someone coming to take a look, but it could take a couple hours. I'm gonna call and see if anyone can come sooner, but until then, I guess we're having rehearsal in the dark!"

"We could just cancel!" called Edward hopefully from inside the theater.

"Shut the  _ fuck _ up, Eddie, the show must go the fuck on!" shouted Taako.

"It's fine, we can rehearse in the dark. I've got an emergency lantern in my backpack," Lucretia announced.

"Of course you do," muttered Lydia.

Barry walked down the aisle stairs, keeping one hand carefully on the seat backs and watching the glo-tape lining the steps so he didn't miss one and fall. Taako was propping the doors open so that some of the sunlight streaming into the lobby could get into the theater. He said something to Lup too quietly for anyone else to hear, and she laughed.

“This is kind of exciting, isn’t it?” Magnus said as Barry approached. “I’ve never been in the theater in the dark before, it’s almost spooky.”

“Lucretia better get that lantern out so we can use it as a ghostlight,” Julia giggled.

Shuddering, Barry sat down next to them on the floor. “Oh, god, why would you even say that?” he groaned.

Lucretia set the small lantern on the edge of the stage and turned it on. “She’s right, you know. You’re never supposed to leave a theater entirely dark.”

“Or a  _ dark spirit _ will inhabit it!” Taako added.

“Can we please just start rehearsal?” Barry said uncomfortably. He moved closer to the lantern. He wasn’t going to say anything, but he  _ really _ didn’t like the idea of having rehearsal in the dark. What if the lantern ran out of battery? What if the doors got locked accidentally and they were trapped inside?  _ No, that’s stupid _ , he told himself.  _ You’re being stupid. _

“Agreed. Magnus, Julia, June, and Angus, scene one!” Lucretia said.

A hand on Barry’s shoulder made him flinch.

“You aren’t  _ scared _ , are you?” Edward asked. The look on his face gave Barry the impression that he would be thrilled if the answer was yes.

“No, I just don’t want anyone to trip in the dark,” lied Barry. “There’s lots of props in the wings, it’s really easy to stub your toe if the lights aren’t on.”

Edward released him, looking disappointed.

Barry made his way to a seat in the front row of the theater, right in front of where the lantern was on stage. He set his backpack on the ground by his feet and crossed his arms tightly across his chest, keeping his eyes fixed on the light.

Someone sat down in the seat next to him. “You alright?” Lup asked quietly.

He nodded.

“Creesh, I’m gonna go see if I can find more flashlights somewhere,” Taako said. "Don't let the ghosts in while I'm gone! If I miss a haunting, I'll be real pissed off."

Lucretia ignored him. "Okay, take it from the top." The power being out meant that they couldn’t plug in the speakers to play the soundtrack, so they just rehearsed the scenes without the songs. “We’re going to skip ‘16 Going on 17’ and go right to scene two,” Lucretia instructed.

Lup, Sloane, and Edward headed up to the stage. During the scene, right before the point where he would have started singing, he made an exaggerated movement and his foot connected with the lantern on the apron. It flew off the edge of the stage and shattered on the ground, plunging the theater into darkness.

Barry clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a yelp.

“Hey, Edward, the  _ fuuuuck _ ?!” shouted Lup.

“Oops, sorry,” Edward said.

Privately, Barry thought that he didn’t sound very sorry.

Lucretia just sighed. “Let’s hope Taako brings some flashlights. In the meantime, let’s not walk around in the pit so nobody tracks any broken plastic anywhere.”

Barry took out his phone and turned on the flashlight app. He did it mostly to make himself more comfortable, but he shone it on the stage. “Here, I’ve got plenty of battery.”

“Thank you, Barry. Actually, if you can go onstage while avoiding the broken lantern, we could go on to the next scene,” Lucretia said thoughtfully. “We shouldn’t waste time if we don’t have to.”

Nervously, Barry looked at the shattered plastic. There was luckily enough space to walk over to the stairs without stepping on the lantern’s remains. He still had to walk up the dark stairwell that led to the stage with only his phone’s flashlight to light his way, and his heart was beating a little too quickly. As he started to push through the wing curtains, he slammed into someone coming the opposite direction. This time, he couldn’t hold back a cry as he fell backwards. His phone clattered to the floor as he reached out to catch himself.

“What just happened?” called Lucretia.

“Shit, are you okay?” Sloane gasped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were right there!”

Barry fumbled for his phone, but he couldn’t find it in the pitch blackness. It must have landed on its back so the flashlight was pointed towards the ground. “I’m  _ fine _ , I just--” He could definitely feel a bruise forming where his elbow had struck the ground. “I can’t see, I’m gonna bump into something if I try to stand up.”

Someone else’s phone flashlight lit up the space suddenly, and Lup pushed the curtain to one side. “Everyone okay?”

“I’m good.” Barry found his phone and let Sloane help him up. “But I think rehearsing in the dark has proven itself dangerous.”

“I have to agree.” Lucretia had followed them up to the wings. “I think we’re going to have to cancel the rest of rehearsal today.”

“This show has got some serious bad luck,” Lup remarked as they headed back down into the house.

“Must be cursed,” Lydia chimed in.

“There’s no such thing as curses, and luck isn’t real,” Barry stated, irritated. It was more snappish than he liked to be, but his elbow hurt and it was dark and he was really not in a good mood anymore. He picked his backpack up and fell silent.

“Hopefully, the power will be fixed by tomorrow and we can get back on track. Goodbye, everyone.” Lucretia was trying to pick up the pieces of her broken lantern before they could get embedded in the carpet.

"Bye, guys. I'm gonna go find wherever Taako wandered off to--probably went to the orchestra room to see if Dav has flashlights and ended up disturbing the rehearsal there by flirting with the grim reaper," Lup said.

"The  _ whomst _ ?" Sloane demanded.

They left together while Lup explained quietly, both of them giggling.

Barry followed them slowly, not wanting to be the last one left in the dark theater. He sat down in the lobby, which was still bright from the afternoon sun coming through the windows, not really wanting to drive home quite yet. He watched as Lydia and Edward left, then Magnus and Julia, then Angus, June, Artemis, and Ahvi. Merle was in the booth, presumably still on the phone with the people who were supposed to come and fix the electricity. Lucretia was the last to leave. She came over to Barry.

"Did you talk to Lup?" she asked.

He nodded. "Everything's fine. Thanks for the advice."

She sat next to him with a sigh. "Good. There's enough dissent in the cast as it is. Are you alright? That sounded like a pretty hard fall up there."

"No, I'm fine. I am, uh, glad that we're not doing more rehearsal today," Barry added. "I know we still have a lot of work to do before we're ready to open, but it felt like nothing was gonna get done while the theater was dark."

"I agree with you. It was too dangerous. We could have found somewhere else to rehearse, but I had this...feeling, like something would go wrong there as well." Then she shrugged. "I don't like to imagine myself as superstitious--I hope you don't think that I'm silly for having that kind of feeling."

"Just 'cause I don't believe in luck or curses doesn't mean I wouldn't trust your intuition, Lucretia," he told her. "I think you're really good at this, and if you have a bad feeling about something, I'd go with that."

Lucretia smiled. "Thank you, I appreciate that. Are you going to head home?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to...decompress, or something. Are you going home?"

"I'll start off in a few minutes."

"Oh, right, you walk home," Barry remembered. "Do you want a ride? I can drive you, it's no problem."

She paused. "I make it a rule to never accept rides home, but honestly? It's been a long day. Don't tell anyone."

"I won't," Barry said with a laugh. He got to his feet. "You'll have to give me directions."

"I can do that." Lucretia took his hand and let him help her up. 

On their way out into the parking lot, Barry said, "By the way, I don't think I've ever really thanked you for giving me this role. I know there were people who've been involved in the theater here for a long time who you could've given it to, and I really appreciate it."

"Oh, well, really, there's nobody in the drama club suited to the role. Ahvi would have taken it if I gave it to him, but he prefers having less to memorize and he's more of a baritone/bass than a tenor anyway. I'm very glad that you gave such a stellar audition so I wasn't forced to give it to Edward, to be honest."

"It's this car here," Barry said. He opened the door for her. "If you knew nobody in the club was right for the role, why did you write it?" he wondered as they backed out of the parking space.

"Hmm...just another feeling, I suppose," Lucretia said. "Maybe I just knew someone like you would be coming along. You fit right in, Barry. I'm glad you joined us."

A warm feeling in his chest rose up at the compliment from his new friend. "Thank you," he responded genuinely.

Lucretia gave him the directions to get to her house. It was only a few minutes long drive, and Barry soon found himself at his own home, where his mother asked him curiously why rehearsal had gotten out so early.

"Power went out," Barry said.

"Oh, dear!"

"Yeah, well." Barry shrugged, headed upstairs, and sang, "Things could be worse!"

"Better knock on wood, saying things like that!" Marlena exclaimed.

Indulging her, Barry rapped his knuckles against the railing. "We're hoping that's the last stroke of disaster that hits the show, but everyone seems to think it wasn't. Guess we'll see!" The song was still stuck in his head and he hummed it as he continued up the stairs.  _ Tell yourself... _

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, drop a comment if you're enjoying this fic! Love you guys, take care of yourselves!


	5. The Actor's Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup experiences the phenomenon commonly referred to as the actor's nightmare. The nightmarish rehearsals don't stop when she wakes up. In fact, things are about to get a whole lot worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might just move posting days to Wednesdays because of my schedule, oops. Anyway! Here is a chapter! Enjoy!
> 
> Warnings: nightmares, insect mention (there's some ants very briefly), theater malfunctions. Also, from the sentence "Lup headed back into the theater briefly just to grab the keys from the booth" onwards at the end, a warning to any claustrophobic readers. A more detailed warning can be found in the end notes.

_ "Places in five minutes!" _

_ Lup looked down at herself, noticing the elaborate Victorian style corset and dress that she was wearing. "This isn't the costume for the musical…" she muttered to herself. "Hey, Lucretia?" _

_ "Yes?" Lucretia was holding a script. It didn't look like the one for Where Luck Comes From. _

_ "What show is this?" she asked. _

_ "What do you mean?" _

_ Lup turned around. The other cast members were dressed in similarly outlandish costumes. None of them seemed to be in the same show. Little Angus had on a cowboy hat and boots. Lydia and Edward were both wearing flapper dresses. "What show is this?" _

_ "You don't remember?" Lydia clicked her tongue. "Well, I hope you remember your lines, at least." _

_ "No! I don't even know what show this is supposed to be!" _

_ "It's a murder mystery," Angus offered. _

_ "That doesn't help! We haven't been rehearsing a murder mystery, it's…" Then, Lup couldn't even remember what show they  _ had  _ been rehearsing. _

_ "I suppose Lydia will have to go on for your part," Lucretia sighed. _

_ "No--give me the script, I'll learn the part!" Lup pleaded. "What's my character's name?" _

_ "None of the characters have names. Lup, it's obvious that you aren't prepared," said Lucretia. _

_ Lup couldn't breathe. "Where's Taako?" She looked up at the lights and sound booth. It wasn't even there. "What the--" _

_ "Places," called Lucretia. _

_ Everyone was gone except for Lucretia. The stage wasn't there anymore. "I don't know what to do!" cried Lup. "Where do I go?" _

_ "I called places. Why are you still here?" _

_ "But this isn't our show!" _

"Lup?"

Lup sat up with a sharp gasp, panting.

"Whoa, you good?" Taako asked, concerned. He was sitting on the edge of her bed. The alarm must have gone off a few minutes ago. Lup had slept through it, like usual.

She groaned, putting her head in her hands. "This show has me way too fuckin' stressed," she mumbled.

"Bad dream?"

"The actor's nightmare, of course." Lup rubbed her eyes.

Taako patted her back. "Nice. What was it?"

"I dunno, they wanted me to go on for some murder mystery play and when I told them I didn't know the show, Lucretia was gonna let Lydia go on in my place. Weird costumes, nobody looked like they were from the same time period. I looked for you to ask if you knew what the hell was going on and the booth was just, like, not even there," Lup told him.

"Murder mystery, hm?" Taako said, standing up. "If we're not careful, the whole production is gonna turn into one of those. How nobody's killed anybody yet is a miracle. My bets are on Edward, fuckin' hate that dude."

"Ha, ha," Lup said dryly.

"I'm just sayin'!"

"Don't joke about stuff like that." She got up and headed for the bathroom, needing to wash her face and clear her head. "Enough has already gone wrong, you don't need to jinx it."

"Lighten up, it's a high school theater. Nobody's  _ actually _ getting killed," Taako replied.

Lup splashed water on her face and didn't respond.

She was the first in the theater that afternoon for rehearsal--she didn't wait for Taako outside of the math building like she normally would. Lup wasn't entirely sure  _ why _ she was mad at her brother, but she was. She hopped up onto the stage, intending to find a quiet corner in the wings to sit and sulk while everyone else arrived. When she pushed the curtain aside, her arm got caught unexpectedly in a hole that definitely wasn't there yesterday. "Hey, what the…?"

As she took a closer look at the hole, she started to get worried. It wasn't a small tear. This was a slash that extended almost five feet in length and there was another cut that connected to it diagonally and created a large flap of the thick fabric in the shape of a  _ V _ that fell down and left a gap in the curtain.

"That's not good," she stated, and rushed up to the booth. It was locked, so she went out into the lobby and down the hallway to the orchestra room. The students were still filing out. She pushed past them and ran up to Davenport. "Is Merle here today?"

"No, he's out. What's wrong, Lup?" Dav asked.

Lup groaned. "There's something wrong with the curtain in the theater. Like, a huge-ass tear in it that definitely was  _ not _ there yesterday."

Davenport made a face that was the definition of  _ yikes _ . " _ How _ big?"

"Um…" Lup gestured vaguely. "Big."

He muttered something under his breath. It sounded suspiciously like, "Well, shit." Then he headed towards the door. "I'll go take a look." Lup followed him back into the theater and watched as he examined the tear. "I guess we're going to have to either buy a new curtain or go without one," Dav said dismally. "Repairing it would be difficult--this type of fabric is hard to stitch through."

Just then, Angus came into the theater, squinting a little behind a pair of square glasses that looked too small for him. "Sir? Mr. Davenport, sir, I left my glasses in the booth yesterday on accident and Mr. Merle's substitute today didn't have the keys, can you open it please? It got locked after rehearsal yesterday before I could get them."

"Here," Davenport told him, tossing him the keys.

Angus made a valiant attempt to catch them. Lup stifled a giggle as the kid missed by several inches. "Capnport, don't throw him stuff while he can't see!" she said.

"Oops!"

"It's okay, sir, I got them!" He picked the keys up off the ground and headed up into the booth as Magnus, Julia, and Taako walked in.

Taako headed right for Lup. "You didn't wait for me," he stated.

She shrugged. "You can walk halfway across campus by yourself, can't you?"

He took a step backwards, looking hurt. "Oh. Okay. Fine."

Before Lup could respond (she already felt guilty), there was a cry of dismay from the booth. "They're broken!" wailed Angus as he rushed out of the booth, cradling his glasses in his hands. One of the lenses was completely shattered, the other cracked, and the bridge was snapped in half.

Magnus gasped and ran to the kid. After giving him a quick pat on the shoulder to reassure him, he said, "Well, that sure doesn't  _ look _ good, huh?" 

Angus allowed him a teary-eyed smile of acknowledgement at the mediocre joke.

The other cast members were arriving. Lucretia put her arm around Angus and led him to sit down in one of the nearby seats. "And they weren't broken when you left them there after rehearsal yesterday?" she asked.

The boy frowned as he looked down at his ruined glasses. "I took them off to try on my costume. Then the booth was locked and I couldn't get them back, so I went home. Someone either broke them before it was locked up yesterday, or they have keys. And the only people with keys are Mr. Davenport and Mr. Merle," he reasoned.

"Ah," Davenport began. "There might be another possibility, though I hesitate to bring it up…"

Angus looked up at him sharply. "Please bring it up, sir."

"Merle's set of keys went missing a few weeks back," Dav told them all. "We weren't too concerned because...well, he misplaces things all the time and they usually show up again. But why do you think someone  _ broke _ them, Angus? It was probably an accident."

"I don't think so," Angus replied. "They were sitting near the back of the counter, very difficult to knock off something there by accident. And even if someone had, it would have been easy to notice them falling. The damage wasn't caused by a fall. Someone stepped on them and then snapped them in half."

Lup narrowed her eyes. "You're a clever kiddo, aren't you?" she said.

Angus sighed. "Yes, I am, but that doesn't make me feel any better about my glasses. My grandpa is going to be really mad. They're expensive to replace."

Magnus, who was sitting next to him, ruffled his hair affectionately. "You're gonna be okay, kiddo. It wasn't your fault. I'm sure your grandpa will understand."

Angus didn't look so sure, and Lup felt a sudden surge of protectiveness for him. "See if you can get them to put new lenses in a pair of old frames," she suggested. "That's much cheaper. And they usually adjust them for free, I think you could use the ones that you're wearing right now if they just make them a bit looser. And I'll come up with a story for you if you need to explain how they got broken in a way that won't make him mad."

"Are you saying he should lie to his grandpa?" Lucretia asked. "Lup, I don't think--"

"Lup is right," Taako interrupted. "Safer to have a backup story than to not have one."

"I-it's okay, I don't think I'll need one," Angus said, looking back and forth between the twins with a frown. "Thank you, but it's just going to annoy him a little because it's an inconvenience. It's okay, really."

Lup was quickly realizing that she may have overreacted. "Oh, okay. So should we start rehearsal or what? Also, there's a giant-ass tear in one of the curtains, so  _ that's  _ fuckin' great," she said loudly.

A chorus of confused and dismayed exclamations answered her. She hopped up and walked off, letting Davenport explain so she had a minute to clear her head. As she wandered into the stairwell, she stared at a strange black lump in the corner. Then she yelped.

The black lump was a mass of ants covering an open soda can, which had spilled onto the linoleum floor. " _ Gross! _ " she said. "Holy shit, gross! Who the fuck had soda in the theater?"

Davenport was at her side quickly. "Oh, great," he sighed. "That's another thing to fix. I'll get it cleaned up as soon as I can. Well, we might as well just start rehearsal. There's only  _ two weeks _ after today before tech week, and we are nowhere near ready. We need all the time we can get, even if the show seems determined to be a disaster at every step."

"I don't think it's the show's fault," Lup muttered darkly, but she went out of the stairwell and joined the rest of the cast to prepare a run-through of Act Two.

_ To: quoth the raven _

_ From: lupsadaisy _

_ Wanna run act 2 lines somewhere after rehearsal tonight? _

_ To: lupsadaisy _

_ From: quoth the raven _

_ I thought u were off book already? _

_ To: quoth the raven _

_ From: lupsadaisy _

_ not 100% plus I wanna get out of the house _

_ My brother is annoying me. _

_ To: lupsadaisy _

_ From: quoth the raven _

_ Yeah what is up with you two this week????? Everyone is v worried _

_ To: quoth the raven _

_ From: lupsadaisy _

_ Idk I just. Idk. I dont like it either. Idek what happened im just annoyed w him _

_ But I think hes sad abt it and that makes me sad but im not ready to not be annoyed with him _

_ Hes just gonna have to console himself by flirting w mr reaper some more _

_ To: lupsadaisy _

_ From: quoth the raven _

_ Oh did u know that he (mr reaper) is friends w Hurley??? I didnt until today but yeah they kno each other _

_ She told me theyve known each other for a couple years and also that he does not have a date to the winter dance _

_ (Which I think was mostly her trying to get Me to ask her to the dance but! She has to be patient, I've got somethin planned for next week) _

_ To: quoth the raven _

_ From: lupsadaisy _

_ ooooh _

_ Tell me all about it. When we're running lines tonight. _

_ To: lupsadaisy _

_ From: quoth the raven _

_ U got it, pal _

Disaster would have been an understatement for today's rehearsal. The whole week had been awful. Tomorrow was Friday, which meant that they had only one more week until tech rehearsal, and Lup was having real doubts that they would even be ready by opening night. 

The theater tech class had spent the past two weeks building the front half of a car replica that could actually be sat in--or so they had thought. The moment that Barry and Lup had tried to use it for the first time for their big scene in act two, both seats had broken and sent them crashing through to the floor.

"Fuck!" Lup yelped.

"Are you alright?!" Lucretia exclaimed. She dropped her script and rushed up onto the stage. Magnus emerged from the wings to help pull the two actors out of the wreckage.

"Ow," Barry muttered. Magnus helped him to his feet, while Lup accepted Lucretia's hand to pull her up.

"I can't believe this!" Davenport fumed. "I  _ specifically _ told the tech class to make sure it was safe before today. Oh--is everyone alright?"

Once he was able to stand, Barry headed right down off the stage and towards the back hallway without a word. Lucretia frowned and took a few steps after him, but Lup stopped her. "I've got him," she said quietly. As Barry had pushed past her, she had seen tears forming in the corners of his eyes. She had a feeling that he would be embarrassed if anyone knew he was so upset, which was why he had walked off. Still, she wasn't going to let her new friend go off to cry alone.

She found him sitting on the ground with his knees pulled up to his chest and his face in his hands. Barry was fairly broad and not very short, but in that moment he looked quite small.

"Hey," she said.

Flinching, Barry looked up with tear stained eyes. "Oh, shit, I...I didn't want…"

"I know." She sat next to him. "It's been a hard week."

"Yeah, but I…" He tried to laugh and failed miserably. "I just feel so silly, I...." A muffled sob escaped him.

Lup touched his arm. "Hey, no, it's alright. Shh, shh, hey…"

"It's my first show here, I wanted it to be good." Barry shook his head. "But everything is just so wrong."

"It's going to be okay," Lup promised. "Don't you know what they say? The worse the rehearsals go, the better opening night."

Barry managed a chuckle. "Then I guess we're gonna have the greatest opening night that Faerun High has ever had."

"That's the spirit!" Lup put her arm around his shoulders. Barry stiffened for a moment before seeming to decide that actually, this was okay. He relaxed and put his head down on her shoulder. "There you go," she said more softly. "See, we'll be okay."

"I just don't want to make a fool of myself," Barry told her after a moment.

Lup paused, considering that. "You know? I think you're doing alright."

"That...that means a lot, Lup. Thank you."

"Anytime, Barry." They stayed sitting there for a few more minutes while Barry's breathing evened out. "Can we go back in?" Lup suggested.

Barry looked at her ruefully. "Do I look too much like I've been crying?"

"Nah, you look fresh as a daisy. C'mon." She helped him up and back into the theater. The remains of the broken car prop had been removed from the stage, and so the rehearsal continued for a while…

Until the next storm broke.

The pit orchestra had arrived to practice the Act One opening number with the actors. In the minutes it took for them to set up, Taako declared that he was going to add the new light cue that Lucretia had suggested yesterday. Lup saw that his face was a bit pink as he walked past Kravitz and his keyboard. He passed by her as well, and gave her a  _ look _ . She followed him into the booth.

"Lup, I know you're pissed at me--" Taako started.

"I am not."

"Yeah, sure, deny it. But Lup, I've got a…" Taako brought his hand up to his chest. "I've got a really bad feeling." His voice trembled. He looked at her with genuine worry.

Suddenly, everything softened inside of her. She couldn't even recall the anger anymore. "About what? Are you...are you okay?" she asked.

"No, I'm not. Lup, I know I was the one making jokes about everything, but now I'm serious. I'm  _ worried _ , Lu...Lup."

Lup took his hand. "We're okay," she said.

"Lulu, too many bad things have happened. What if it gets worse? I think we need to tell Lucretia that the show needs to stop," he rushed.

"What? No, no, no! We can't do that! Look. Look, Taako, it's not that bad. We're gonna make it work, and someday we're going to look back at all of these...mishaps, and we're going to laugh. Hey, hey. We're gonna be okay." She pulled him in for a hug.

"You're just trying to make me feel better," he mumbled into her shoulder.

"Hmm. Is it working?"

"Yeah, a little."

"Good." She patted his back. "Now, were you gonna figure out that light cue?"

"Yeah! I was, actually. I was gonna show Sazed the ropes today, so I should finish that." Taako stepped back. He went over to the light board and started to fiddle with it. He punched in a few cues and frowned. "What the…"

"What's wrong?"

"That one is supposed to be a blue-wash, but it's just bringing up the normal full-stage lights. That's really weird…"

"Maybe you wrote the number down wrong?"

Taako's expression was turning from mild concern to straight-up panic as he tried to pull up more light cues. "I didn't write  _ all the fucking numbers _ down wrong, though. None of the cues will come up."

"Huh?" Lup stepped closer and touched his shoulder.

"Lup." Taako closed his eyes. "All of the cues have been erased."

"Oh, shit. Are you sure?"

"Pretty fuckin' sure. Fuck! I had  _ dozens _ of cues programmed, damn it! That took  _ hours _ ! How did this happen?!" he cried. Lup tried to calm him down, but he pushed past her and left the booth. "Hey! Who touched my  _ fucking light board _ ?" he shouted out into the theater.

"Taako, what's wrong?" Davenport wanted to know.

"This is a fucking  _ loch in kop _ , it's the last thing we fucking need." Taako buried his hands in his hair and turned towards Lup. "I need to go, I'll fix this tomorrow. Hey, Sazed? Fuck it, we aren't doing lights today, you can go too. Lup, I just need to go. Okay?"

"Go where?" she asked.

"I'll just go home. I'll walk, I guess. I need to clear my head before I  _ plotz _ and start strangling people until they tell me who screwed with my light board." He shook his head.

"Okay," Lup said. "Okay, that's fine. Hey, let me drive you. I don't want you going off by yourself." She was following him out of the theater, leaving everyone else behind.

"No, I'll be fine. You've got to finish rehearsal, god knows they need you. Go on." He shooed her back towards the theater and tried to smile. "I'm fine."

"If you're sure." Lup gave him a doubtful look. "I'll actually go out to the prop shed and grab that steering wheel we were using before the car got built. It's better to have the prop than to mime at this point in rehearsals."

"Go for it. See you at home tonight." Taako gave her a thumbs up and walked off.

Lup headed back into the theater briefly just to grab the keys from the booth, then jogged off towards the prop shed which was on the other side of the blacktop. She opened the shed and headed inside, leaving the keys in the lock.

It was pretty dark inside the shed, and only just big enough for a few rows of shelves with walkways in between. Lup had never liked it. She stepped behind the shelf of costumes to where the small props were kept. She was just standing up on her toes to reach the top shelf where they had put the steering wheel, when the door slammed shut behind her.

"What the fuck?" Lup whirled around. In the darkness, she slammed into the costume shelf. "Ouch! Hey, who closed the door?"

She heard the lock click.

"That's not funny!" Worried, she fumbled towards the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. "Hey! Can anyone hear me? Open the door!"

Nothing happened. Lup slammed her shoulder into the door. It didn't move, but it definitely did hurt.

"Hey!" she shouted. Her voice broke as panic set in. "Is anyone out there? Help! Someone?! Help me, please! Can anyone hear me?  _ Help! _ "

But the door didn't open, and the darkness seemed to get darker and darker, closing in around her in the tiny shed. She could barely breathe. Lup screamed herself hoarse. She kept screaming until no more sounds came out, and she was all alone in the silent darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About that claustrophobia warning: as in the show, Lup gets trapped in a small, dark space (a props shed as opposed to the inside of a magic umbrella). It is implied that someone followed her and deliberately locked her inside.
> 
> If you're not here for the warning, hi! Thanks for reading! Sorry about...all that. Let me know what you thought in a comment, please! As always, I'm @johannsviolin on tumblr!


	6. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup is missing. Taako is _not okay_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is. Thursday. My dudes. (I'm sorry! I have a very bad memory.)
> 
> Warnings: Panic attack, a missing loved one, thoughts about losing someone, crying, food mention

Taako buried his face into his pillow. As soon as he had gotten home, he had changed into sweatpants and collapsed into bed to take a nap. But he had not slept nearly long enough before there was a knocking at the door, and it wouldn't stop. "Go away," he groaned. The doorbell rang. He raised his head and glanced at the clock.  _ Oh, shit, I've been asleep for three hours. Huh, did Lup lose her keys again? _ He got up and stumbled towards the door. "I'm coming, I'm coming."

Of everyone that could have been at the door, he was definitely not expecting to see Barry and Lucretia. Barry was visibly freaked out. Lucretia was holding it together better, but Taako could tell immediately that something was wrong.

"What?" he demanded.

"Is Lup here?" Barry asked, voice trembling with uncertain hope.

Taako's stomach clenched. "No. I walked home. She stayed at rehearsal."

"She didn't come back," Lucretia said. "Taako, her backpack and her phone are still in the theater and her car is still in the parking lot, but she didn't come back to rehearsal."

"What do you mean? Of course she did, I watched her walk back towards the theater." Taako was shaking his head. "Nuh-uh, she was at rehearsal."

"We can't find her, Taako," Barry confessed.

Taako's mind felt numb. He didn't realize that he was trembling until his legs gave out underneath him and Barry and Lucretia both grabbed him to keep him from falling. "I don't understand. You can't find her?"

"Everyone is still looking. You didn't answer your phone," Lucretia said. "We tried to call you!"

"I w-was  _ asleep _ ! She's  _ missing?! _ " Taako gripped Lucretia's shoulder as his legs once again threatened to send him crumpling to the floor.

"Taako, we need to go back to school, they're still searching. Davenport is  _ this _ close to calling the police," Lucretia told him.

_ Holy shit. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. _

"Come get into Barry's car. We're going back to school. Taako,  _ breathe _ !"

_ This can't be happening. Lup? Not to Lup. Nothing can happen to Lup. _ Somehow, he was sitting in the backseat of a car. Lucretia was next to him.

"Is he--"

"I've got Taako, you drive." Lucretia put the seat belt on for Taako, who physically couldn't move to do it for himself. "Breathe, Taako. You need to breathe. Having a panic attack isn't going to help her."

What had Lup said right before he had left? He couldn't even remember. He had been so preoccupied with the stupid lights that he couldn't even remember what she had told him.  _ No, no, no, no, no… _

"Taako?"

What if-- _ oh, god, no. Please, no. _

"Please take a breath. Can you breathe with me, Taako?"

Thoughts that he didn't want to put words to swirled around in his head, solidifying despite him trying desperately not to let them.  _ She's missing. What if she's gone? What if she's...What if that was the last conversation I ever have with her? And I can't even fucking remember it? _

"Taako! You can't help look for her if you pass out!" Lucretia said sharply.

Taako gasped. It was the first oxygen that had entered his lungs since the panic attack had started, and everything burned. "Shit!"

"I know, Taako, I know. Now keep breathing." Lucretia held his hand all the way to school. Barry was silent, but his ragged breathing indicated that he was also terrified.

When they got to the theater, they were immediately greeted by Davenport with a grim expression on his face. "We still haven't found her," he told them. "Taako, I'm sorry, I know you're worried--"

"Worried? I'm--I'm fucking  _ losing it _ , Capnport!" Taako said.

"I know. But we need to know, did she say anything to you before you left?"

"I don't remember!" wailed Taako. He fell to his knees and clutched at his head.

A rush of light footsteps approached them. "Mr. Davenport, sir?" Angus said. He sounded hesitant, like he didn't know if he should be interrupting.

"What is it, Angus?" Lucretia answered him.

"It's just--you asked me to check the orchestra room one more time and lock it up, but the keys aren't where you said they are."

Davenport groaned. "I'll go check. Stay here."

Taako couldn't breathe again. This time, it wasn't purely panic. "Wait!"

"Taako?" Davenport said.

"Keys? Fuckin--where do the keys go to?"

Lucretia gasped softly.

"Um--the orchestra room, the back hallway, the theater, the booth, the props sh--" he started to list.

"The props!" Taako was on his feet again. "She--she  _ said _ , she said she was going to go get the steering wheel back for the scene. Did anyone check the props shed?" He didn't wait for a response before dashing out of the theater. Angus, Lucretia, Barry, and Davenport were right behind him. 

Somehow, Angus managed to outpace him and reach the shed first. He immediately cried out. "There's a sound--"

Taako flung himself at the door handle. It was locked. "Does  _ anyone _ have a key?" he shouted.

There was a pounding on the door from the inside. Taako didn't hear the answer to whether there was a key, because he was already kicking the door hard enough to knock the locked handle off and yank it open.

And there was Lup. She fell forward into his arms, and he held her so tightly that he worried for a second that he might be hurting her before she squeezed back just as hard.

Davenport was already on his phone. "We found her, Merle. She's safe!"

A few feet away, Barry was crying.

" _ What happened _ ?!" Taako demanded. "How did this happen, Lulu?"

She tried to answer. All that came out was a whimper.

"Okay, okay, you don't have to talk." Taako grabbed her hand and stroked his thumb across the back of her hand diagonally, from her wrist to her knuckles.  _ I'm here, you're okay, everything will be alright. _

"My throat hurts," she whispered hoarsely after a minute. "I was trying so hard to get someone to hear me, I…"

"Someone get her some water," Taako stated. "Hold on, Lup, shhh. Wait for a minute."

Lucretia had a water bottle. She handed it over, cap unscrewed. Taako was grateful for that. Both his and Lup's hands were shaking too much to open it. Lup drank about a third of the bottle and handed it back.

"I don't know, I don't know what happened," she told them. "The door just closed behind me and it was locked, and I couldn't get out. I-i-it was probably just a-a theater ghost, huh?" Lup was clearly trying to make a joke, but it didn't land very well.

"Someone locked you in there?" Taako said. He felt something cold seize up inside of him. "I'm going to kill whoever it was."

"No--hey, Taako, I'm f--"

"You'd do the same fucking thing for me, Lup. Someone  _ hurt you _ . Let me be pissed off," he interrupted.

"Koko? I-I'd actually rather you weren't angry, I need…" She hid her face in his shoulder again. "Wait until later for the angry part?"

He couldn't say no to that. "Lup, I'm bringing you home. Come on, we're going home. Someone get her stuff from the theater to her car, please. C'mon, Lup, let's go."

"I c-can't drive like this."

"Of fucking course not, I'm driving."

Lup let out a mildly hysterical high-pitched laugh. "Taako, honey, you don't have a license."

"I have a permit, and it allows me to drive my damn sister home," he retorted. His arms were still around her as they walked. Their friends hovered close.

"You're shaking. I'd rather not die in a car crash after escaping getting locked in a fucking shed, if it's all the same to you," Lup said.

Again, he couldn't argue. "Alright, but I need you to be home."

"I'll drive you," Barry offered immediately.

"Great, Barold will drive us. I'm not letting you go to school tomorrow, Lulu, and not until they figure out who did this," Taako added.

"Tomorrow, sure. After that, we'll talk." Lup had a handful of his shirt held tightly in her fist. Lucretia brought Lup's backpack out and put it into Barry's car. Taako climbed into the car first, putting out his hand for Lup to follow him.

"Hey, Lup?" Barry said tentatively. "Is it--hey, sorry, can I give you a hug?"

Taako locked eyes with her, silently telling her that it was okay if she said no. But she gave him a reassuring glance and turned to Barry. She pulled him into a gentle hug.

"I'm really glad you're okay," he mumbled. "I-I was real worried."

"Thanks, Barry." Lup held on for another few seconds and then released him to get into the car.

"You're all dusty," Taako noticed. "We gotta get you cleaned up when we get home."

Lup closed her eyes, nodded, and leaned against him. She was quiet all the way home. Her breathing was a little shaky. At one point, she took his hand and held it tightly. That was the only time that Taako spoke on the ride.

"I've gotcha," he whispered. She nodded again. Taako thanked Barry for the ride and took Lup inside. He brushed some of the dust off of her clothes and hair and then sat down with her on the couch. They stared at each other for a minute, both waiting to see if the other would speak first. Then, unexpectedly, Taako felt his face crumple and his eyes blur over.

"Oh, no," Lup said, realizing that Taako was about to burst into tears. She took him into her arms just in time as he started sobbing. "No, no, Taako, it's okay. Don't cry, hey, I'm right here."

He knew that. He  _ knew _ that. Everything was fine now. Lup was here and she was fine. So why was he crying?

"Shhh, shhh. Taako, no, it's okay. Please? Please, Koko, please, you're gonna m-make me…"

Taako cursed himself silently as Lup started crying as well. Now they were both losing it, and he knew from experience that neither of them would be able to stop while the other was still crying.

"We're  _ fine _ ," she insisted. "Everything is fine."

"It's not fine!" Taako wailed. "Lup, you were gone, I-I thought...Lup, someone  _ hurt you _ ! They c-closed the door--what if we hadn't found you?"

"But you  _ did _ !"

"Why would s-someone--" He could hardly talk through his growing sobs, but he pressed on. "Lulu, why would anyone wanna hurt you? I-I'm  _ scared _ , Lup!"

Her fingers dug into his back. "I don't know, Koko. I kept thinking, I don't know, maybe it was a stupid prank gone too far? But nobody came back, so…I'm scared, too."

"I don't want you going back to school," Taako said.

"I won't go tomorrow," she promised. "But next week--"

"If it isn't safe--"

"It's the  _ last week before tech _ ! I can't stay home."

Taako couldn't believe what he was hearing. It shocked him enough that he could rein in the sobs, and he leaned back to look at her. "You're still talking about the  _ fucking play _ ? It's not important anymore, Lulu!"

"Of course it is!"

"Not more important than your safety!"

“Can we talk about this tomorrow? Please?” Lup begged. “I-I want to take a shower and eat something and...and curl up and watch a movie and not think about it anymore. I promise I’ll hear you out tomorrow.”

Taako wiped his eyes, swallowed his overwhelming worry and protectiveness, and nodded. “Tomorrow,” he agreed. “Go take a shower, I’ll have some food for you when you come out. We have some soup in the freezer, is that okay?”

“Sounds great, bubbelah.” Lup patted his hand and stood up. “You’ll be okay with me out of your sight for fifteen minutes, right?” She was only mostly joking when she asked that.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay. Will you?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” she replied. She headed towards the bathroom. A minute later, the water started running. Taako put the chicken soup onto the stove to heat up.

_ Wish we had some matzo meal, _ he thought. Matzo ball soup was the ultimate comfort food, but this would have to do for now. He had two mugs of it ready by the time Lup got out of the shower, dressed in an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. Her damp hair was swept back in a loose ponytail to keep it out of her face. She took the mug and just held it between her hands for a while, softly bumping her shoulder against Taako’s as they stood quietly together in the kitchen. He got her to sit down on the couch with him while she ate, watching as her eyelids started to droop.

“Can we watch something?” she asked when she was done with the soup.

“Anything in particular?” Taako picked up the remote.

Lup curled up across his lap and yawned. “Somethin’ I can fall asleep to.”

“Gotcha.” He put on an old episode of  _ The Great British Baking Show _ and took the ponytail out of her hair so he could braid it. The soft, content sighs that she made as she fell asleep were more comforting than any verbal reassurance she might have given him. They meant that she was  _ safe _ and that she was truly going to be alright. That was all he needed, all that mattered. Lup was safe.

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Mddme Director _

_ Just wanted to check in and see how you and Lup are doing. _

_ Do you need anything? _

_ Taako, nobody has heard from either of you for almost two days, please answer me _

_ Magnus and I would like to stop by tomorrow, is that okay? We just want to make sure that you’re alright. _

_ Taako? Can we come over this afternoon? _

_ To: Mddme Director _

_ From: Taako _

_ Read at 11:28 AM _

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Mddme Director _

_ I mean, that isn’t how that works, you don’t actually text that to someone. But fair enough, I get your point. _

_ To: Mddme Director _

_ From: Taako _

_ see u tmrow at school i guess. against my better judgement, we will be there. _

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Mddme Director _

_ Thank you for letting me know.  _

_ To: Mddme Director _

_ From: Taako _

_ natch. _


	7. The Choices We Make

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnd we're back! Sorry for the delay, this chapter gave me fits and I'm still not 100% happy with it but we're just gonna go with it. Enjoy! <3

Lucretia was worried as she waited in the classroom before school for Lup to arrive. Even though Taako had told her that the two of them would be at school today, she knew that he hadn’t wanted her back until they had figured out who had closed the door to the shed. Honestly, Lucretia thought that was very reasonable. Still, she wanted to see for herself that Lup was okay.

A minute before the bell rang, both of the twins showed up at the door to the classroom. Taako hesitated there. For some reason, he wouldn’t look Lucretia in the eye as she came over to them. “I’ll be here at the end of the period,” he told Lup, let go of her hand, and left before Lucretia could say anything to him.

Lup turned to Lucretia. “Sorry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He decided that he’s mad at you because you're choosing not to cancel the show and so much has gone wrong. He’ll get over it.”

_ He thinks it’s my fault? _ Suddenly, Lucretia thought that he might be right. “I’m sorry.”

With a frown, Lup said, “Like I told you, he’ll get over it. Don’t worry,  _ I _ don’t blame you at all. Koko’s just overprotective and he needed somewhere to put his frustration. I promise that he’ll get over it. Listen to this, he’s insisting that I wait in every classroom for him after every period so I don’t walk anywhere alone.”

The bell rang, and they sat down. “He’s just worried about you.” The memory of the sheer terror on Taako’s face when he thought that Lup was gone was painfully vivid.

“I know,” Lup said quietly. “Don’t tell him I talked to you about this, but he spent half the weekend sobbing into my shoulder. I swear it freaked him out more than me. How’s everyone else handling everything? I know a bunch of people texted me, but I just...wasn’t up for talking to anyone but Koko.”

“Everyone understood that,” Lucretia assured her.

“Oh, good.” Class was starting. Lup reached over and held Lucretia’s hand. She didn’t let go for the entire period. Lucretia didn’t mind. She could take notes just as easily with her left hand.

Rehearsal was quiet and subdued that afternoon. Even Edward and Lydia refrained from their usual torment of the rest of the cast. Taako sat cross-legged on the corner of the apron and didn't let Lup out of his sight for a second. On scenes she wasn't in, she sat down next to him and he clung to her hand, glaring at everyone else in the theater. Lucretia tried not to wilt when the glared turned occasionally on her.

Without much further incident, the run-through finished. To Lucretia's relief and satisfaction, everyone was completely or very nearly off-book for both acts. At least that was one thing that wasn't proving disastrous.

The next day, the orchestra came to practice live with them. When Johann, Davenport's star violinist, opened his instrument's case, he gave a dismayed cry. "Aw, no! My bow!"

"Nice rhyme," remarked Edward.

Johann slumped down in his chair. "My best bow is broken," he sighed.

"Oh, yikes," Lup said, taking a closer look. "Wanna borrow mine? It's in the orchestra room, I could go get it." Taako prepared to stand up and go with her.

"Nah." A bit dispondantly, Johann took a second bow from his case, which had been concealed in a secondary compartment covered in a slip of velvet. "I've got a backup, it's just not my favorite. Just give me a minute, I gotta resin it."

"Gotta resin that bow, if you know what I mean," Lydia said with a high-pitched giggle.

Johann shot her a disgusted look. "Gross," he mumbled, and got out the resin.

Kravitz, who had been sitting at his keyboard, stood up. "I'm going to take advantage of this extra couple of minutes--hey, Taako, can I talk to you for a minute?" He sounded nervous, Lucretia noticed.

Taako startled where he was sitting next to Lup. "Huh?"

"Can I talk to you?" Kravitz repeated.

"I, uh, don't want to leave…" He glanced at his twin, who had a slight smile on her face.

"Hey, Magnus, come and sit with me so Taako can go talk to Krav," Lup called. Magnus came over, and so Taako left with Kravitz.

Lup looked at Lucretia and winked. " _ Finally _ ."

"What's happening?" Magnus asked.

"I think we'll find out in a little while," Lucretia replied, sharing the knowing look with Lup. She silently wished Kravitz luck--Taako probably had more on his mind than getting a date. "But let's move on, I really want to get this run-through finished. Places, everyone."

The run-through started. Kravitz returned to the theater just in time to sit down at the keyboard and join in at the beginning of the first song. There was a smile on his face. As Lucretia glanced at Taako, who had sat back down next to Lup and was whispering something in her ear, the same smile was reflected on his face. It was the first smile she had seen on him all week. She saw Lup put her hand over her mouth to stifle a squeal and a laugh, and Taako's grin widened as he shushed her.

A light-heartedness permeated Lup's performance for the rest of rehearsal, and when the piano was playing, it seemed cheerful even during the more serious songs.

_ Maybe things are looking up _ , Lucretia allowed herself to think when the day had passed without any incidents and she was walking home. Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

_ To: Lucylu _

_ From: Lup _

_ SO GET THIS _

_ TAAKO ASKED HIM FIRST _

_ BEFORE KRAV EVEN HAD A CHANCE TO ASK TAAKO GOT IT OUT FIRST AND I SJUDUFHDH _

_ im so proud of him _

_ i for one welcome my new grim reaper brother in law. _

_ To: Lup _

_ From: Lucylu _

_ That might be moving a bit fast, don't you think? But I agree with the sentiment, haha. _

_ To: Lucylu _

_ From: Lup _

_ Nah koko's already picking out the wedding ring im sure _

_ dontcha know he is MUCH more impulsive than me? itd probably take me like 50 yrs to make a move on someone I liked sjfhjdj _

_ O shit now hes lying on the floor wailing that he has nothing to wear on this date, i guess I gotta go sort that out. <3 ttyl! _

_ To: Lup _

_ From: Lucylu _

_ Good luck with that! _

The slight reprieve from disasters did not last long. The very next day in rehearsal, someone spilled water in the stairwell, which Magnus slipped in and twisted his ankle.

"Ooh, bad luck," Lydia said, sickly-sweet false sympathy dripping from her voice.

Taako was helping Magnus to his feet. "Oh, shut up, Lydia," he snapped. "We all know you two are enjoying every second of this shit, even if I can't prove you're the ones causing it."

Lucretia sighed. "Please--"

"No, I don't want to hear it from you, either," Taako said sharply. He got Magnus over to a chair with Julia's assistance. Merle was running off to grab him an ice pack.

"I'm fine," Magnus tried.

Lucretia put her head in her hands as she heard Taako continue.

" _ And _ ! We still don't know who shut Lup into the shed!" he said, more anger flooding into his tone. "I have  _ every _ reason to think one of you did that."

"We did not!" Edward said indignantly. "Why would you--"

"Oh, fuck off! You both hate her! I wouldn't put it past--"

"Taako!" Lup said loudly. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

She wanted to step in, but Lucretia was just so tired. This wasn't her job, was it? Was it her responsibility to stop all of this fighting?

A second later, Merle came in to give Magnus an ice pack. Lucretia felt relieved. Merle assessed the situation, seeing Taako and Lup arguing partially in harsh whispers and partially using some incomprehensible nonverbal language that nobody else had been able to figure out. Lydia and Edward were standing together with their arms crossed, glaring out in no particular direction. Everyone else was sharing tense, unsure glances. Merle came over to Lucretia. "Everything okay?"

She shook her head. Suddenly, she was on the brink of tears.

Merle patted her shoulder. He went over to Taako and Lup. Lucretia could hear them talking quietly.

Magnus leaned over towards her. "Hey, do you think we're having such bad luck because someone said the name of the Scottish play?" he joked.

She almost laughed at his attempt to bring theater culture into the conversation. "Or maybe someone brought in a peacock feather."

Barry joined the discussion. "It must be because we don't have a ghost light after all," he said.

With a dramatic gasp, Julia said, "Or maybe it's because I was whistling in the theater a while ago!"

"Are those all real things?" asked Magnus.

"Oh, yeah," Barry confirmed. "Theater superstitions are numerous and completely wild."

"Theater folks will do anything to ensure that tiny bit of luck they might need," Julia said.

Lucretia glanced back over at the two sets of twins and Merle. Some of the tension there had disappeared. Nobody looked particularly happy, but it no longer seemed like anyone was about to throw a punch. That was a relief.  _ Thank goodness for Merle. _ Lucretia had a feeling that he would be able to mediate arguments between anyone he wanted to. He could bring about world peace if he could sit down at a table with the leaders of every country at war.

After rehearsal finished, Lucretia was about to grab her backpack and head home, wanting to just curl up with a book and forget about everything that was happening. Then she felt a tap on her arm.

"Um," Angus said. "My grandpa isn't feeling well, and he can't come pick me up today. Do you think anyone would be able to give me a ride home?"

Lucretia nodded and put her hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Lup?" she called.

"Yeah, Luce, what's up?" Lup replied from near the door to the theater.

"Can you give Angus a ride home today?"

"Absolutely," Lup answered immediately.

"Thank you!" Angus said. "It's pretty far, though, almost a fifteen minute drive--my grandpa would probably give you gas mon--"

Taako interrupted him. "There is absolutely no way we are taking gas money from a baby," he stated.

"I'm not a baby!" Angus protested. "I'm ten."

Lup gasped. "Holy shit, you're  _ ten _ ? That  _ is _ baby."

Angus crossed his arms. "I'll be eleven in a month," he muttered.

"Lucy, who let a baby into high school?" Lup demanded. "Did you know this?"

"Yes, I knew how old Angus is," Lucretia said. "You do know he's a  _ genius _ , right?"

"So? He's  _ ten _ ! He should be outside playing at recess still! Building with legos! Mixing up every spice in the kitchen into a bowl and lighting it on fire! I don't know what normal ten-year olds do," Lup admitted. "But that's what me and Taako were doing."

"That seems dangerous," Angus said.

"Oh, it was," Taako said wistfully. "Burned my eyebrows off. But it sure smelled nice."

"For about five seconds before the smoke alarm went off," added Lup. She grinned. "Still wanna ride in the car with us?"

Angus shrugged. "I'm sure I've been in more perilous situations."

Lup squinted. "I'm not gonna read into that unless you want me to, bubbelah. Okay, c'mon, let's head out. You're gonna have to give me directions, Ango."

Lucretia watched them leave. She was left alone in the theater now except for Merle, who was in the booth. She went and lingered at the door for a moment. "Is Magnus alright? I was too distracted to really check on him," she said.

"Oh, he'll be fine. Just a twisted ankle." Merle propped his chin up on his hand. "How 'bout you, Creesh?"

"I'll be perfectly alright as soon as this show is over. I feel like it's aged me twenty years." She leaned against the doorframe with a sigh. "I'm tired of the fighting. I know some of the cast doesn't get along, but I couldn't make my casting decisions based on that. And Taako is positive that Edward and Lydia are doing some of this deliberately. We've had such consistent bad luck that there  _ has _ to be something else to it, but we have no proof."

Merle nodded. "Edward and Lydia were in the theater the entire time when Lup went missing. I told Taako that there was no way they could have closed that door on her. But someone did, because my keys are still missing. And somebody slashed the curtain, and broke Angus's glasses, and messed with the lights board. Maybe other stuff too, I don't know. Lucretia, I don't think anyone would blame you if you wanted to end the show now."

She stared at him. "Even  _ you _ think it's my fault?"

"No!" he hastened. "Actually, I think you should keep going with it. Don't give up. But if it gets to be too much, don't push yourself to the breaking point."

"We only have a few days until tech week," Lucretia said. "Then two weekends of shows and it's over. I can't let it go now."

"That's the spirit!" Merle encouraged. "And I'll try to keep your cast from tearing each other to pieces."

"Thank you, I appreciate that. See you tomorrow." Lucretia managed a smile as she waved and left the booth.

"Remember," Merle called after her, "we can't control our luck, but we can choose how to respond to it! And you're doing a great job!"

_ I hope so _ , Lucretia thought, unconvinced.  _ If I was doing a great job, none of these problems would be anything more than minor inconveniences, and luck would be inconsequential. No matter how many jokes they make about theater superstitions, it won't change the fact that the only bad luck comes from the choices that we make. _


	8. Getting Vulnerable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: mild head injury, also Lup talks a little about her and Taako's shitty childhood

A breeze swept over the small grassy lawn behind the science building. There was a wooden picnic table there, and it was quiet. It was Barry's favorite place to spend free time at lunch or at breaks. Usually, he was alone there. If he got bored, he would go inside and bother the chemistry teachers.

But today, he was not alone. He was sitting across the table from Lup, and he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"I can't believe I didn't even know that this little place was back here," she was saying. "I'm by the science buildings all the time 'cause Taako's taken a chem class every year here, but I never noticed the path that leads back here." She looked up at the trees above them, which had started to turn warm colors with the onset of autumn. "It's really pretty."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I really like it back here."

"That's probably why I hadn't seen you around much before the show started," she said thoughtfully. "I thought I knew everyone on campus. I'm so glad that you auditioned." She smiled at him. Barry almost forgot how to breathe for a moment.

"Me too," he said. Was he blushing? His face felt warm. "Hey, how long have you played the violin? I heard you tell Johann that he could borrow your bow, and I was curious."

"Started freshman year, actually!" she said. "I'm definitely not on Johann's level...yet. But it's fun. One of our distant relatives gave the cousin we live with an old violin, and he was gonna throw it out but I pulled it out of the dumpster. Taako had zero interest in learning, and I'd never be able to afford a brand new instrument, so I brought it to school and asked Capnport if I could join the orchestra at the start of the next semester. I've been playing ever since. How 'bout you? D'you play an instrument?"

He nodded. "Piano. I took lessons in elementary school, neglected it for a while, then started again a couple of years ago."

"You any good?" she asked.

"Um...I'm passable."

"That's what someone who's really good at playing piano would say," Lup giggled. "Will you play for me sometime?"

"Sure. Will you?"

"Absolutely. We'll do a duet." She grinned.

They talked for a while: freely, comfortably. It was easy for both of them to make the other laugh. Barry had never felt this level of familiarity with anyone before. He had only known Lup for a few months, but he felt like he had known her his whole life. 

She was an excellent storyteller--Barry thought that Taako would probably be annoyed if he knew what Lup was telling him about their childhood. Some of the stories were more than a little embarrassing, like about the time Taako had tried to cook something and had put a foil-wrapped potato into the microwave.

"Hey, uh, Lup? I kind of thought that Taako was sticking pretty close to you these days," Barry said. "What's he up to today?"

"After I  _ promised _ to stay with you until I saw him at the end of lunch, I could convince him to go chill with Kravitz," Lup explained. "They went on their first date this weekend and it's been great. I've never seen Koko so giddy about a boy before, even though he tries to play it cool. Honestly, it's adorable. Hopefully they won't distract each other too much during tech rehearsal today."

Barry's eyes went wide. "I almost forgot that tech rehearsal starts  _ today _ . Holy--we open on Friday! That's in  _ four days _ . Ahhhh!" He put his head in his hands. He had been so caught up in other things that he had forgotten to feel anxious. Now it was catching up to him.

"Oh, wow," laughed Lup. "Sorry for reminding you! Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, probably unconvincingly.

Lup leaned across the table to put her hand on his shoulder. "Breathe, it's gonna be fine! We both know our lines, yeah? Plus, I'd cover for you if you forgot something."

"I just, I haven't been on stage in front of an audience in...years," Barry explained. "And I've been having so much fun that I almost forgot what it's all leading up to."

"Do you get stage fright?" Lup asked.

"Uh-huh, big time," Barry said, nodding.

Lup gave his shoulder a comforting pat. "Does it help to know I've got your back up there?"

"Yeah, I think so. Do, um, do you have that problem?" Barry wanted to know.

"Nope," Lup said.

"Really? Not at all?"

"Not at all. I have no stage fright."

Barry stared at her. "How?"

"Um…" Lup paused. Her gaze drifted back up to the yellow and red leaves fluttering above them. Absently, she took Barry's hands. "The thing is, Barr, stage fright is because people are looking at you, right? And you're scared of them...judging you, or of messing up in front of them, or of being not perfect. But people are  _ always _ looking at me. I  _ always _ have to present as perfectly as I can. Being trans comes with the delightful bonus of most people expecting me to be performing constantly. I'm always on stage, just because of who I am. What difference does it make if I'm on stage  _ physically _ ? Honestly, it's less stressful to pretend to be someone else sometimes. Plus," she added more brightly, "I know I'm good. I have nothing to worry about."

"That makes sense," Barry responded. He squeezed her hand. "And yeah, you are good. You're gonna do great on Friday. I'm probably just gonna freeze up."

"Even if you do, everyone else on stage has your back. Well, maybe not Edward and Lydia, but we'll make it work. We can all cover for you no matter what happens," Lup assured him.

That did actually make him feel less anxious. "Thank you, I...I appreciate that."

"Anytime. Oh, hey, you know the house party scene in Act Two when Edward, like, smashes a bottle over your head? The breakaway bottles that Lucretia ordered arrived, so we're gonna actually use one today," Lup said excitedly.

"Oh, super," Barry sighed.

"They're perfectly safe," she promised. "We used them when we did Three Musketeers a couple years ago."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it." He rolled his eyes. "Knowing Edward, he's gonna grab a real bottle just for the fun of it." Suddenly, he realized that he was still holding her hands.  _ Should I let go? _ he wondered.  _ She's not pulling away. Actually, she's kind of...stroking my hand with her thumb. _ Barry looked up at Lup. Was he imagining things, or were her cheeks a little pinker than they had been a few minutes ago?

Lup seemed to notice the way he was looking at her. The conversation lulled. She didn't let go of his hands. After a minute, she began, "Hey, listen, Barry, I was wonder--"

The bell rang.

"Oh, shoot, I promised Koko I'd meet him by the math building before lunch ended!" Lup exclaimed, jumping to her feet and grabbing her backpack. "I gotta go, Barr, were you heading that way?"

"Yeah, I'll walk you!" he said quickly, despite the fact that his next class was history and it was on the other side of campus. They hurried towards the math building. "What was it you were wondering?"

"Oh, not important." Lup spotted Taako and headed over to him, waving at Barry. "See you at rehearsal!"

"See you at rehearsal!" he replied, and turned to rush to history. He didn't pay much attention in class that day. His mind was preoccupied by the memory of Lup's hands on his.

_ Okay, so I have a crush _ , he finally admitted to himself as he walked to the theater after school was over.  _ How could I not? She's clever and funny and talented and sweet. She doesn't think I'm too nerdy to be friends with. She actually likes me and wants to spend time with me. _

He was pretty sure that the turning point between just admiring her as a friend and having a full-on  _ I think I would like to kiss this girl _ crush was when she had followed him into the hallway at the disastrous rehearsal when he had started to cry. Lup hadn't teased him or made him feel silly for getting so upset. She had just hugged him and told him that it was going to be okay, encouraged and reassured him. And that was it. That was all Barry needed to be head over heels for her.

And now at rehearsal, she was laughing and trying to convince him to just give the breakaway bottle a try. "You're gonna have to get used to it, we open in four days!" she said.

Barry turned to Lucretia. "Do I have to do this?" he asked.

She shrugged. "If you're not comfortable with it, I can write it out. We're not going to make you do something you don't want to do, Barry."

"I just…" The thought made Barry nervous. He stared at the breakaway bottle, brown and nondescript and indistinguishable from a normal bottle unless it was looked at pretty closely.

"Just let me hit you with it and get it over with," Edward said impatiently.

"Luce, how many extra did we order?" Lup asked.

"Six extra. Why?" responded Lucretia.

Lup gestured for Taako to come up onto the stage and grabbed the bottle that Edward was supposed to use on Barry. "Barr, watch, it's totally safe," she said, and she brought the bottle down on top of Taako's head.

The next few seconds were what Barry would describe as  _ extremely stressful. _

The bottle did not break.

Taako let out a yelp of pain and dropped to his knees.

Lup cried out and flung the bottle away from her as if it was a particularly large spider. It shattered on the hard wooden floor of the stage. It was decidedly not a breakaway bottle, and pieces of real glass went scattering across the ground.

" _ Oy gevalt _ !" Taako exclaimed. "Ouch! Hey, what the fuck?!"

"Taako, are you alright?" gasped Lucretia.

"No! I mean, yeah, it wasn't that hard of a hit, but  _ no _ ! That hurt! What the fuck? It was supposed to break!" Taako said. He rubbed his head with a wince.

"I'm so sorry," Lup said shakily. "Taako, I'm so sorry, I didn't me--"

"Of course you didn't mean to, shut up."

Barry could hardly breathe.

Taako was still rubbing the painful spot on his head. "I should, uh, probably put some ice on this so I don't have a big-ass lump tomorrow."

"C'mon, Taako, let's go find some ice," Merle said, emerging from the booth. "And I can make sure you don't have a concussion."

Lup whimpered.

"Calm down," Taako told her. He got to his feet, reaching out to steady himself on her. "It's actually kinda funny if you think about it. And I definitely don't have a concussion. I know what those feel like, you know that. This is just a bit of a bruise."

She hugged him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm  _ fine _ ." They followed Merle out of the theater.

Barry heard humming behind him. Edward was walking over to the largest piece of the bottle on the ground. He picked up the piece, the neck of the bottle, and examined it. With a glance over his shoulder at Barry, Edward started singing his song from the beginning of Act One.

"Tell yourself how lucky you are," he sang, and kept humming as he picked up a few more shards to throw away.

A shiver ran down Barry's spine. Somehow, he was certain that if Lup hadn't decided to demonstrate with the bottle on Taako, it would be him on the ground with a lump on his head. And he had a feeling that Edward would have hit a lot harder than Lup. He left the stage quickly and went over to Lucretia, who looked shaken. "I think maybe it would be a good idea to write it out after all," he told her quietly.

She put her hand on his arm and nodded.

_ To: barry bluejays _

_ From: Lup <3 _

_ So I have been. Thinking. And there is no way that wasnt on purpose _

_ Edward 100% was gonna hit u with the bottle _

_ To: Lup <3 _

_ From: barry bluejays _

_ Yeah, I know. But we can't prove anything. _

_ To: barry bluejays _

_ From: Lup <3 _

_ Im gonna tear him to pieces _

_ To: Lup <3 _

_ From: barry bluejays _

_ Lup, please dont. We'll all get in trouble. _

_ To: barry bluejays _

_ From: Lup <3 _

_ He hurt my brother. He could have hurt you. I'm gonna fucking kill him now. _

_ To: Lup <3 _

_ From: barry bluejays _

_ ...as long as you let me help hide the body. _

_ To: barry bluejays _

_ From: Lup <3 _

_ Oh of course! <3 _

Barry was waiting for Lup the next morning behind the science building. When she showed up, she looked much calmer than he had expected. "So, is there a body to hide?" he asked cautiously.

"Nah. I just snuck into the locker room this morning and stole his lock. He'll get told off and have to pay the $10 fine. Might do more later, but I definitely feel better after doing that." Lup sat down at the picnic table.

"How's Taako?"

"Got a lump the size of a chicken egg, but like, he's fine," she replied.

Barry winced. "Sorry. It should have been me."

Lup looked at him fiercely. "It shouldn't have been  _ anyone _ ! God, this show is fucking cursed. We're all gonna die."

Startled, Barry flinched. "Someone is doing it on purpose. It isn't a curse," he stated.

"I…" Lup took a deep breath, calming herself down. "Yeah. I know. Sorry. I get really protective sometimes."

"I did notice that, yes."

"I really, really didn't like seeing Koko get hurt. And when I realized that  _ you _ might have gotten hurt too, I kind of just...saw red. Doesn't happen very often. I try not to lose my cool unless it gets really bad." She ran her hands through her hair and laughed weakly. "So much for that."

"I don't think anyone would blame you for getting angry. I mean, your brother got hurt. That would make anyone mad, I think," Barry said.

"Do you have any siblings?" Lup asked him.

Barry shook his head. "Just me."

"It's like…" She paused. "I'm gonna get kinda vulnerable for a minute, bear with me. Do you mind?"

Not entirely sure what he was agreeing to, Barry said, "Go ahead, it's okay."

"Me and Taako...all we have is each other. And like, we get so protective because we  _ have _ to be. You don't have siblings, but even if you did...well, nobody really understands. We're twins, but we're also best friends. We're two halves of a whole set. We're each other's heart," Lup explained. "So we protect each other. We've always looked out for each other, because we've had a lot of shit happen to us. Hey, Barr?"

"Yeah?"

"Has anyone ever told you anything about us? Like, our lives? I sometimes feel like everyone in the school knows our situation, but I don't know if you do or not."

"I...know you live with your cousin?" Barry offered. "But like, that's about it."

"Right. Well, we haven't even seen that cousin in a few months. He barely lives at the house, he's always away on 'business trips'. Honestly, we don't even know what he does. But he tolerates us living in his house, which is better than some of the places we've been." She kind of laughed and added, "Normally I don't talk about any of this with people. But I can trust you, right?"

"Of course," he said immediately. "But also, you don't...um, you don't  _ have _ to tell me anything. You don't, like, owe me an explanation or..."

"No, I know. But I kind of _want _you to know? Which is weird, because I usually don't want to talk about it." Lup glanced at her watch. "Okay, we've got ten minutes before the bell rings. I'll make it quick, here goes. Me and Taako are twins, duh. Our dad left before we were born and our mother didn't even want one of us, let alone two, but she was going to keep one of us and put the other up for adoption."

_ Oh, she was not kidding when she said she was gonna get vulnerable with me. _

"The way we were told it later, her friend--our aunt, who isn't our biological aunt but was the closest thing to family we ever had--didn't think it was fair to separate us and adopted both of us," Lup said. "Our mother just kind of left after that. Never heard from her again. Aunt Penelope raised us until we were ten, and then she died."

"Oh, Lup, I'm so sorry," Barry said sincerely.

Lup acknowledged him with a nod. "Thanks, Barr. I'm not looking to start crying at 7:45 in the morning, so I'm just gonna leave it at that. But yeah, that's how we ended up getting passed around between distant relatives before Aunt Lupe's nephew took us in a few years ago."

_ Aunt Lupe…  _ "Oh, wow," Barry realized.

Seeing the look of dawning understanding on his face, Lup smiled and reached out to take his hand. "Yeah, you got it. I mean, who  _ else _ would I name myself after? And Penny just didn't seem to fit. But hey, like I said, I  _ really  _ don't tell people about that very often, so, um, keep it on the down-low, okay?"

Barry promised that he would.

"Thanks, I appreciate it. Don't bring it up with Taako, either. He knows I'm telling you this, but he's even more...well, he'll walk out of the room if you even mention some of this stuff," she added.

"Hey, Lup? Why...um, why  _ did _ you tell me? You said you wanted to, but...why?" Barry couldn't help asking.

"Because...I like you? Because I trust you, and I want you to understand why me and Taako are the way we are. And, y'know, you should know what you're getting into if you're gonna be our friend," she said. "We're not easy to love."

"I don't think that's true," Barry replied.  _ At least, I haven't found it hard at all _ , he thought to himself, but he didn't say it out loud.

Lup seemed to understand what he meant anyway. She didn't say anything, just held his hand tighter and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I NEED you all to know that my outline notes for this chapter about Lup and Barry's conversation at the end is just this: 
> 
> "Lup gets a little more open about her and Taako's life (you must be a level 8 friend to unlock her tragic backstory and Barry has gone on a speedrun)"
> 
> Anyway hope you enjoyed! I'd love it if you want to leave me a comment! Come chat with me on tumblr @johannsviolin! <3


	9. We Don't Know Anything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the waaaaiiiit I was. Busy. W/health problems and also the project for awesome and also it's finals week. But you don't want excuses, you want the chapter! Here it is!
> 
> Warnings: lots of argument, discussion about threats/threatening messages, shouting, blaming, etc

"So wait, why does Creesh want us all here half an hour before school starts?" Magnus said. He yawned. He didn't usually show up on campus until a few seconds before the bell rang.

"She called a whole cast and crew meeting," Julia replied patiently. "I still can't believe you aren't on the email list. Have you talked to her about that?"

Magnus shrugged. "Uh, it's not necessarily that I'm not on the email list. I just haven't logged into the school email in like, months."

"Right." She glanced at him with a fond roll of her eyes. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

They walked towards the lobby doors. The school parking lot was pretty much empty this early in the morning, and the door was locked when Magnus tried to open it. "Where are we meeting again?" he asked.

Julia pulled out her phone to check the email. "Um...oh, she sent a second one saying to come into the orchestra room."

"Aaaand around the building we go," said Magnus. The door to the orchestra room was unlocked, and they went in. It seemed like they were some of the last people to arrive. Scattered around in chairs and on the floor sat everyone involved in the show. Or, almost everyone. Magnus noticed that Edward and Lydia were nowhere to be seen.

"Julia, Magnus," Lucretia greeted.

"Hey, Creesh, what's all this about?" Magnus asked.

"Yes, we would like to know that too, actually," stated Artemis Stirling.

Half-asleep in the corner with her head on Taako's shoulder, Lup raised her hand. "I would also  _ love _ to know why we are out of bed at 6:50 in the morning." Next to her, Barry nodded.

Lucretia looked over first at Davenport, then at Merle. Magnus could tell that she hadn't gotten much sleep last night. "Davenport, could you…?"

He took over, stepping up onto the table next to where Lucretia sat so that everyone could see him. "Everyone, I know we've been working so hard on this show. And I know we've run into a lot of...bumps in the road."

"And bumps in the head," Taako muttered. Several people stifled a laugh, including Magnus.

Davenport didn't find it funny. "Exactly. There have been injuries and situations that go beyond acceptable difficulties for high school theater. And last night…" He paused and put his hand on Lucretia's arm. "Lucretia got an email from an anonymous source threatening to...well, to make sure the show didn't succeed."

Lup sat up straight, looking wide awake now. "Holy...holy  _ shit _ , Lucy, someone actually threatened you?!"

"Let me at the email, I can figure out where it was sent from and it any other accounts are attached to it," Lucas said immediately. "Let me hack them, I can  _ totally _ hack them."

_ He sounds way too enthusiastic about that, _ Magnus thought, but his hackles were raised as well. Lucretia was like a sister to him, and his protective nature was telling him to let Lucas hack the person so he could make sure they couldn't hurt her.

"It wasn't a threat to me personally," Lucretia clarified. "It was a threat to the show itself. And it  _ could _ have just been a prank email."

"Luce, someone locked me into a shed," Lup said matter-of-factly. "I don't think any of this is a prank at this point."

"That was my thinking, too," agreed Davenport. "Which is why I believe that we need to cancel the show."

Magnus gasped. There were mutters and protests from the cast, crew, and orchestra. Some people were nodding.

Merle raised his hands to placate the group. "At this point, we haven't made any final decisions yet. We know this show means a lot to you guys--some of you are seniors, this is your last fall play here. We're not taking this lightly, you know."

"But our first priority is to keep students safe," Davenport said.

"Can we at least vote on it?" Magnus blurted out. "Like, we get a say in this, right?"

"Yeah, we've been working on this for weeks!" Lup added. "We've put  _ everything _ into the show and we're supposed to open in three days! There's  _ no way _ we can just quit now!"

"And is anybody investigating who's behind it?" wondered Ren.

"Administration is working on it," said Davenport.

Angus was staring around at everyone in the room with wide eyes. "Why aren't Edward and Lydia here?" he asked.

The room was hushed for a minute before Lucretia cleared her throat. "I...I definitely  _ didn't _ deliberately forget to include them in the email," she said in a tone indicating that was precisely what she had done.

"But if you had, would it be because you think they're the ones causing all these problems?" Angus inquired.

Lucretia winced. "We don't know anything for sure, Angus."

"That's not entirely true. We know for sure that Edward and Lydia did not lock Lup in the shed, since they were in the theater the whole time she was gone and I would have noticed if they left," Angus told her. “Which means at least one other person is involved.”

That warranted another hush. Everyone glanced around the choir room, scanning their cast and crewmates as if trying to figure out who could possibly be in cohorts with the Vogue twins. Magnus couldn't imagine any of them hurting Lup or threatening Lucretia. He reached for Julia's hand.

"I think we should take a vote," Lup said after a minute. "Magnus is absolutely right, we need a say in this."

"I'm not sure we should--" Davenport began.

Merle interrupted him. "Yeah, we can vote. But it is really my and Capnport's decision, kids. We'll take into account what you all want to do, and even if we do keep the show going, anyone who wants to leave is free to. Okay. Raise your hand if you want to go through with the show as planned?"

Magnus raised his hand, no hesitation necessary. He didn't just  _ quit _ stuff like this. He would see it out to the end.

Next to him, Julia had her hand raised as well. Magnus looked around the room, noticing how everyone else was voting. Lup's hand was raised--Taako was glaring at her and keeping his hands firmly in his lap. Barry's hand was raised as well. Artemis, Angus, June, Sazed, Johann, and Avi had their hands up, too. With an extremely apologetic look at Taako, Kravitz raised his hand. To Magnus's shock, Lucretia's head was down, and so were her hands. She looked tired.

When Davenport called for those who wanted to end the show to raise their hands, only Taako, Lucas, Ren, and Sloane voted. Lucretia still didn't move.

"Lucretia? Which way are you voting?" Merle asked gently.

She shook her head. "I can't vote. Everyone else has to decide, it...it's up to you."

Taako stared daggers at her. "Raise your goddamn hand, Lucretia. This is  _ your fault _ , the  _ least _ you can do is end it!" he spat.

Magnus flinched at how furious he sounded.

"Taako," Lup said, very quietly. She tried to take his hand. He slapped it away.

"I'm sorry," was all Lucretia said. For a moment, Magnus saw her tense up and thought that she was about to leap to her feet and flee the room. But she stayed put.

"The majority of you want to keep going," Davenport sighed. "Alright. We  _ will _ consider that. Come to rehearsal after school. We'll talk to administration and see what they think, and we'll make a decision by then." The tone of his voice suggested that the meeting was over. 

Most of the cast and crew left the room, scattering without making eye contact. Taako stormed away, ignoring Lup and Kravitz and Barry's attempts to calm him down. Lucretia remained where she was, sitting on the table, looking down at her lap. Her shoulders were slumped.

Magnus turned to Julia. "I gotta talk to her," he murmured. "Head to class, I'll catch up."

She kissed his cheek. "Love you."

"Love you," he echoed, and went over to Lucretia. Everyone else had left. Merle and Davenport were in the choir room office. "Hey, Creesh."

Lucretia barely reacted as he touched her shoulder. "Hi."

"You wanna hug?"

"That's not going to fix anything, I'm afraid." Still, she let him hug her. "I'm sorry," she told him.

Magnus put his hands on either side of her face and made her look up at him. Her eyes were dry and full of guilt. She seemed too tired to cry. "You shouldn't be sorry. Just 'cause Taako's pissed and lashing out and needing to blame someone, doesn't mean any of it is actually your fault."

"But isn't it, though?" she said bitterly. "I'm the writer, stage manager, basically director. If someone has it out for the play, it's because they have it out for me. The fact that I was the one they emailed said as much. And Taako's right, I should at least take responsibility by ending the show and making sure nobody else gets hurt. Right?"

"You better not. I really, really wanna perform this, Luce," said Magnus.

"Even if it's not safe?"

"Oh, definitely! What's the fun if there isn't a little risk?" he proclaimed. "But seriously, Lucretia. I don't think quitting is the right thing to do. It means whoever is doing this has won."

"If nobody else gets hurt, that means  _ we  _ win," countered Lucretia.

"But if we don't quit, we'll show them that we're brave and we don't give up that easily!"

"This isn't a--Magnus, I'm sorry, this isn't a  _ battlefield _ or something like that. We're at school. We aren't fighting a war, we don't have to be  _ brave _ . God, Magnus, this isn't about  _ winning _ !" Now she was fighting back tears. "I just want you all to be safe, but...I know if I quit, if the show is cancelled, most of you will hate me. And I'd rather that than anyone else getting hurt, I just--"

"Hey, hey!" Magnus took her hands and then hugged her again. "It's gonna be okay! Listen, if you cancel the show, we'll be... _ I'll _ be disappointed. But I won't hate you? I'd never hate you, Lucy. Nobody is gonna hate you. Even Taako doesn't hate you, he's just scared. You do know that, right?"

Lucretia pulled away and stood up. "I don't know anything, Magnus," she said. She walked away while he was still trying to formulate a response.

_ To: Mag-NOICE _

_ From: Carey On _

_ my man u have absolutely GOT to clear up wtf is happening in the theater world rn????? _

_ To: Carey On _

_ From: Mag-NOICE _

_ Well the show isn't stopping? we still open day after tomorrow, if that's what ur asking _

_ Dav & Merle just told us _

_ To: Mag-NOICE _

_ From: Carey On _

_ OKAY GREAT but why is taako pissed? wtf is up w lucy? did someone actually leave her a threatening note or was that just an f-d up rumor????? _

_ To: Carey On _

_ From: Mag-NOICE _

_ Email, not a physical note or anything _

_ To: Mag-NOICE _

_ From: Carey On _

_ THAT ISNT ANY BETTER MY DUDE?! Literally everyone not involved in the show has no idea what is happening, theres so much speculation, pls tell us so we can stop wondering _

_ To: Carey On _

_ From: Mag-NOICE _

_ Would if i could. we dont know anything. _

_ To: Mag-NOICE _

_ From: Carey On _

_ You have to know SOMETHING! Who do u think is causing these problems? threatening lucy? etc? _

_ Mags _

_ Maaaaaaaags _

_ Bro answer my quessssstion _

_ Magnus? _

_ To: Carey On _

_ From: Mag-NOICE _

_ Sorry, dealing w something else _

_ and sorry, can't _

_ we just _

_ we don't know anything. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gniiiiiight love y'all! Next chapter up next weekend sometime probably, I have 3 finals this week plus I have to start packing for my trip to Israel (!!!!!) So I'm v busy. Take care of yourselves! ❤🧡💛💚💙💜 ~Martin


	10. Cast Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all I'm posting this from Israel!!!!! I know it's late but I haven't had much WiFi access or time to write. It's not the best but again, not much time to write, and I just wanted to get the chapter posted. Enjoy! Lmk what ya think! Love y'all!

_ Shhhhhhit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. _

Taako was so over this entire situation. He wanted to be angry at Lup and Kravitz for voting to keep the show going, but he couldn’t hold onto that anger for more than a few hours after getting home from the cast meeting. Lup tried to talk to him when they walked through the door. Holding his hand up and shaking his head, all Taako said was, “Nope. Not right now.” She accepted that and stayed in the living room while Taako went to their room and flopped onto his bed.

Why could nobody else see what he saw? The show was doomed. People were getting hurt. The lump on his head was still sore, and Lup had woken up half a dozen times in the past couple weeks from nightmares of being trapped in the shed. He just didn’t want anyone to get hurt, and nobody else even seemed to care.

After having his head buried in his pillow for about an hour, Taako had calmed down enough to feel up to talking to someone. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.  _ Kravitz should be home by now _ .

Kravitz picked up the phone quickly. “Taako, hey. You okay?” He sounded apprehensive.

“No.” Taako groaned and picked up his pillow to hide his face again. “Everything sucks,” he added, muffled.

“Um--Taako, I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear--”

“Everything sucks,” Taako repeated, taking his face out and moving his phone closer to his mouth. “It sucks. It’s all just awful, and cha’boy is miserable.”

“I’m sorry, Taako.”

“And I’m not...like, I’m not even mad at you or anyone for voting to keep going? I’m just...I wish we could figure out why it’s happening. Stop whoever’s doing it.”

“We...we all do, Taako,” Kravitz told him. “And one of the reasons I voted to not stop is because...if we do, we’ll never know who’s doing it, because they’ll have won. So they’ll just disappear, and they’ll never get punished.”

Taako hadn’t considered that. “And you think that if we keep going...they’ll, what, show themselves?”

“Make a mistake, maybe. I don't know, I just know that we won't figure anything out if we give up. Right?" Kravitz asked.

He thought about it. "Maybe. Maybe, but I still really, really hate this."

"Yeah, I know. None of us like it, Taako."

"But I'm…" Taako had to bite back the word  _ scared _ . "Hey, Krav? Thanks. Yeah, really. Thank you. It helped."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna...hey, I'm gonna go. Talk to you tomorrow, 'kay?"

"Okay, Taako. Talk to you tomorrow."

Taako hung up. He stared at his phone, not actually feeling any better. With half-hearted effort, he tossed his phone across the bed. "Lup," he called.

A moment later, she stepped tentatively into the room. "Hey, Taako. You still mad?"

He gestured for her to come sit next to him on the bed. "Course not. Not at you, anyway."

She visibly relaxed. "Okay. Good. Hey, do you, um...so, me and a couple other folks in the cast were talking, and...we think we still want to have the party tomorrow night after our last rehearsal. Um, we want to make it as normal as we can and...at one point, you and I were gonna cook for it. Are you...um, you still up for that?"

"I don't...I dunno, Luls. Maybe? I mean, I'll cook, but I dunno if I wanna go."

Lup took his hand without speaking. Her thumb on his palm and her index finger on the back of his hand, she squeezed gently.  _ Are you gonna be okay? _

Uncomfortable, he shrugged.

She changed tactics and stroked one finger across the back of his hand.  _ I'll be there. You'll be okay. _

Taako knew she was trying to help him, but it wasn't helping. Nothing was. Kravitz hadn't been able to make him feel better, and even Lup's reassurance didn't feel very reassuring. He dragged a quick line across her palm.  _ It's not working. _

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be."

"I want to help."

"I...I want there to be something you could do to help." Taako wrapped his fingers around hers before she could tell him anything else. "But there's not. Unless you know who's fucking with the show and how to stop them."

"Maybe little Ango can figure it out, he's supposed to be a genius, right?" Lup said, trying to laugh.

"Hm, you're right. The kiddo does like his mystery novels. So, cooking?” He hopped up and went to the kitchen.

Lup followed him. “What are we gonna make?”

“Um, you get started on some cookies. I’ll make some, uhh...I don’t know, probably a few things. Stuff that’s easy to stick in the fridge and reheat in the microwave in the greenroom. Some kinda chicken dish, maybe? But I think Sloane’s vegetarian, so other stuff too.” As Taako prepared to start cooking, Lup whirled through the kitchen around him, making cookie dough quickly. She got them into the oven and hopped up onto the counter to sit in her favorite spot. “What do you think, garlic chicken?” asked Taako.

“Sounds great, Koko.”

“How many cloves should I use?”

Lup thought about it for a minute. “Oh, at _ least _ forty.”

Taako laughed. “Forty? Yeah, that’s it.” He and Lup kept making jokes as he cooked. He was  _ actually _ starting to feel better now. “Hey, I need a second opinion. D’you think this milk is bad? It’s like three days past the expiration date, but like, it  _ smells _ okay?”

She gave the carton of milk a sniff. “Yeah, it’s probably fine.”

“Natch.” He went back to making the cream sauce for the pasta dish he was working on. A few hours later, all of the food for the party was finished. Taako shoved everything into the fridge and laid on his back on the ground, sticking his feet up onto the counter and resting them on Lup’s leg. “Fuck, Lulu, I’m so tired of this.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“I just…” He groaned. “Aight, listen. I’ll...go to the stupid party, ‘cause I know you’re going, and I’m not gonna let you go without me. You know?”

“I know.”

“Also, the other cast needs to fuckin’, like, chip in? We’re bringing a hell of a lot of food and y’know, we’re, uh...we’re pretty broke, sis.”

Lup sighed. “I’ll ask around. Merle and Capnport would probably give us some of the theater budget for the food?”

Taako closed his eyes. “Thanks.”

There was a pause. “Shit, it’s getting late,” Lup stated. “Should we go to bed?”

“Yeah, probably.” He didn’t move. Neither did she.

“But seriously, though, it’s almost eleven. We should sleep,” she added a few minutes later.

Taako let his legs fall back down and curled up on the ground.

Lup got down from the counter and put her hand on his shoulder. More softly, she said, “C’mon, Koko. Let’s go to bed.” She pulled him to his feet and brought him to their room.

After getting ready for bed, Taako grabbed his phone from where it had landed on his bed earlier. He had a few texts waiting for him.

"Seriously, go to sleep soon," Lup mumbled. She had crawled under the covers and had her face pressed into her pillow. "And turn off the light."

Taako flipped the light switch and unlocked his phone.

_ To: Lights Up (my life) _

_ From: Grim Reaper, Babeey _

_ Hey, you sure you're okay? I'm here. If you're not. Or if you are. _

_ Just if you want to talk, I'm here! _

_ To: Grim Reaper, Babeey _

_ From: Lights Up (my life) _

_ awwww thats cute babe and very very thoughtful _

_ i mean im not in tiptop shape rn but like it's good, it's cool, taako's good _

_ and I made some good good Snacks for tomorrow at the party thing. u gonna be there? _

_ To: Lights Up (my life) _

_ From: Grim Reaper, Babeey _

_ Definitely! Looking forward to spending more time with you. _

_ To: Grim Reaper, Babeey _

_ From: Lights Up (my life) _

_ 👌👌👌👌👌🌈 (haha gay) _

_ To: Lights Up (my life) _

_ From: Grim Reaper, Babeey _

_ That's the idea! ;) _

Taako was emptying out the contents of the greenroom fridge onto a long folding table in the lobby of the theater. He had been sort of avoiding everyone today, knowing that he was going to be forced to spend several hours with them this afternoon. He left class a few minutes early (the teacher didn't mind, and was probably thrilled to have Taako out of the classroom for those minutes), so nobody else was in the theater yet.

When the bell rang, the first to arrive were Lup and Barry. "Oh, wow, Lup was not exaggerating when she said you had an actual feast prepared," Barry observed. He reached for a cookie and had his hand slapped away. "Huh?"

"The party has  _ not _ started yet. It starts at three, and it's only 2:45," Taako said sternly. Then he snorted. "But who gives a shit, have a cookie.”

Lup swiped a cookie as well.

“No, you’re actually not allowed to have any,” Taako told her.

“Shut the fuck up, I  _ made _ these,” retorted Lup. “Dumbass.”

Grinning, Taako tried to steal the cookie back from her, but she shoved the whole thing in her mouth and stuck her tongue out as best as she could. “Get out of here unless you’re going to help, I still have like twelve different types of chips to put out,” he said. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he turned to see Lydia and Edward enter the theater, followed by a whole flock of other cast and crew and orchestra members. Kravitz entered in through the other set of doors. His eyes met Taako’s and the two of them smiled.

“Gross, you’re already too sappy,” Lup said, dragging Barry away.

Taako wanted to go over to Kravitz, but he didn’t want to leave the food table unattended (not with the Vogue twins around). He glanced around for someone he trusted. “Hey, Sazed? Keep an eye on the food.” He waved his tech assistant over and left him standing there by the table. “You can grab the rest of the snacks from the greenroom, too, just don’t leave the food alone for long. Don’t let Edward and Lydia anywhere near it without watching them.” He didn’t wait for a response before rushing over to Kravitz. "Hey, handsome, how's it hanging?"

Kravitz responded by kissing him. It was only the fourth time that had happened, and Taako still got a little weak at the knees. "There haven't been any disasters yet today, so I'm holding out hope."

"Well, don't jinx it!" Taako said, more cheerfully than he might have if he hadn't just been kissed by the prettiest boy in the whole school. "Wanna hang out here or somewhere else?"

"I want to try all that food you said you made," Kravitz replied, looking over at the table interestedly. Sazed had brought the rest of it out. Taako had to admit, it did look tempting, but he had snacked on a lot of it while he was setting up so he wasn't really hungry anymore.

"Go for it," Taako said. "I'll probably have some later." Magnus was waving at him from where he sat on the floor, already eating from a plate full of food. "Meet ya over there!" He went to go sit with Magnus. Angus, June, and Julia were there as well, and they talked and laughed and complimented Taako's cooking. Kravitz joined them a minute later with a sampling of food for himself. Taako felt better than he had in days.

He shouldn't have let himself get comfortable.

Angus, who had gotten pretty big helpings of a lot of the dishes (more than Taako had thought the small boy could have eaten, but he had polished off the plate), put his hand on his stomach. A bit of pallor crept over his face.

"Eat too fast, kiddo?" Magnus teased.

"Um…maybe." Angus winced. "I…" Suddenly, he scrambled to his feet and rushed to the bathroom. There was a coughing and retching noise as he threw up.

"Oh, Ango!" exclaimed Magnus. He started getting to his feet, probably intending to go make sure Angus was okay, when he went pale as well. "Uh...okay, I'm also not feeling super g--" Then he threw up into a nearby trashcan.

Taako's heart dropped into his stomach. One person getting sick after eating his food was a coincidence. Two was something more.

"Magnus, are you alright?" Lucretia asked worriedly.

Time was either speeding up or slowing down and Taako couldn't tell which. Over the next ten minutes, Barry, June, Lydia, and Lucretia all got sick as well. More than half of the rest of the cast were sick in the half-hour following. Magnus, Kravitz, and June were fine again after having a few sips of water. Barry was feeling so nauseous that he had to sit down, along with several others. Lup didn't throw up, but she was definitely queasy too.

Furious, ill, and looking for someone to blame, Lydia pointed at Taako and said venomously, "It's something in the food that's doing this! I bet he did it on purpose, he wants the show to be over that badly."

Taako was shaking.  _ My fault, something in the food, my fault. _

"Don't be silly, of course nobody did this on purpose," Merle tried to reason with her.

_ Was it the milk? Maybe the milk  _ was _ bad and it's making everyone sick and it's my fault, I wasn't careful enough. _

From the bathroom, Johann (who hadn't gotten sick) called, "Merle? Angus isn't looking too good!"

From then on, time got even weirder. Lydia and Edward stormed out, followed by several other folks who weren't feeling well. Taako watched as if it was a slow motion scene from a TV show. He saw Angus stumble out of the bathroom half-conscious, leaning on Merle, saw his grandfather show up to drive him to the hospital.

It was at that point that Taako burst into tears. "This is just--it's--"

"Not your fault," Lup insisted, and grabbed him into a tight hug. "It's not your fucking fault, Koko."

"I  _ made the food _ , of course it's my--"

"Taako, we don't know exactly what made everyone sick. What we do know is that you did not mean to hurt anyone," Davenport told him.

"Intention doesn't matter when Angus is in the  _ fucking hospital _ ," Taako said, and started sobbing harder.

"He'll be fine, he just needs some fluids while he recovers," Merle said.

From where he was sitting on the ground, Barry half-raised his hand. "Can someone drive me home? I feel too sick to drive and my mom doesn't get home from work for another two hours."

"Course, we gotcha," Lup told him. She gave Taako a squeeze and then handed him off to Kravitz, who held him gently as he continued to sob. "Up you get, Barr. We can take my car. Mind if all of us come along? I don't want to--"

Taako flinched as he heard Barry throw up again.

"Oh, Barr. Yeah, I don't want to leave you alone before your mom gets home."

"None of you should come to school tomorrow," cautioned Merle. "If this was an outbreak of a stomach bug from food poisoning, we don't want it spreading. Just get plenty of electrolytes and you'll be fine." It was easy to forget that Merle was actually a trained nurse until something like this came up.

Barry's house was warm and cozy and smelled like fall-scented candles. Taako found it more comforting than he had any right to as he sat on the couch in the small living room and cried while Kravitz tried to calm him down. Lup was raiding Barry's kitchen for Gatorade and saltines, and Barry was in the bathroom, presumably trying not to be sick again.

"Taako, are you really still blaming yourself?" Kravitz asked helplessly.

Miserable, Taako didn't even lift his face from his hands. "What does it look like?"

"But...you do  _ know _ that it's not your fault, right?"

Taako shook his head. "I should have been more careful."

Kravitz paused before saying, "What do you think it was, Taako? What do you think you did, or didn't do, that could have prevented this?"

"I...I don't know, I thought the milk might have been bad?"

"How much did you use in anything?"

"Like, a few tablespoons in a couple things."

"A quarter cup of possibly spoiled milk did not make a dozen people sick," Kravitz said, very rationally. Unfortunately, Taako was not a rational person. He didn't stop crying.

Barry came stumbling into the room, looking pale but less shaky than he was earlier. Immediately, Lup sat him down on the couch and handed him an open bottle of Gatorade. "Drink, slowly," she instructed.

"Thank you," he said.

"Has anyone heard anything about Angus?" Kravitz asked.

"Not yet. The kid's gonna be okay, whatever this was just hit him harder 'cause he's so tiny." Lup placed the box of saltine crackers on the coffee table and sat in between Taako and Barry. "Koko, talk."

He didn't want to. This was the worst he had felt in a very long time. He hadn't even eaten anything, but he felt almost physically ill. Making food was the best way he knew how to make it known that he cared about people, and this time he had ended up just making them all sick. Maybe it was a sign. Taako didn't really think he believed in signs, but this one seemed pretty clear:  _ stop trying to care about people, you only end up hurting them. _

Lup leaned against him, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck. "Koko, you gotta believe us. It's not your fault, bud."

"Not your fault," Barry concurred.

"Definitely not your fault," agreed Kravitz.

Taako wanted to disappear. He said nothing. Out of tears, he shook with dry sobs. Lup and Kravitz were both trying to comfort him by taking his hands and rubbing his back and shoulders. Even Barry reached over and touched Taako's knee. "I'm feeling better now, Taako, really," Barry tried. "Everyone is going to be fine, and it's really not your fault."

The front door unlocked. Taako tensed instinctively. He felt Lup tense, too, and both of their heads turned. As the door opened and a short, kindly, gray-haired middle-aged woman came in, both of them relaxed. They had never met Marlena before, but Barry talked about her with such fondness that they felt like they knew her already.

"Hey, kiddos, I heard we're not feeling so great," she said sympathetically, putting her purse down and heading over to the couch.

"Hi, Mom." Barry closed his eyes as she kissed his forehead. "Yeah, but we're feeling better now. So, this is Taako and Lup, and this is Kravitz."

Marlena looked them over. Her gaze lingered on Taako's face and he resisted the urge to hide. It was too late and too obvious that he had been crying. "Lovely to meet you all, I just wish it was under better circumstances. So your whole class got food poisoning?"

Taako hid his face in his hands and tried not to start crying again.

"Something like that," Barry replied. "Taako made us all really great food, but something must have gone bad. He thinks it's his fault. It's not."

"Of course it isn't your fault, sweetheart, you wouldn't have done it on purpose, now would you?" Marlena told Taako.

"Guess not," mumbled Taako.

"That's settled, then. Barry, do your friends want to stay the night?" she asked.

"Um…" Barry looked at them. "Do you wanna stay the night?"

"Sure," Lup said.

"I'll check with my mom, but I'd love to," Kravitz said.

"Do you have anyone you need to check with?" Marlena said, directing the question towards Lup and Taako.

"Nobody to ask," Lup replied.

"Nobody cares if we come home at night except each other and here we both are," added Taako.

Marlena paused, quiet for a moment. She put one of her hands on Lup's shoulder and the other on Taako's. "Well, you just let me know if you need anything, anything at all. You're always welcome here, I want you to know that. Anything you need, we'll be here for you."

For some reason, Taako almost felt like crying again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH AND HAPPY 2020!!!!!


	11. On the Case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know. I've been busy. And this chapter is short. But I do promise that I won't abandon the work entirely. I'm reading and writing a lot these days, just...not much fanfiction. The news about the animated series has got me very excited, though! So who knows what might get my interest rekindled! (I haven't lost interest exactly, just focusing on other stuff right now.)
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

After a night in the hospital on an IV drip replacing the fluids he had lost (and continued to lose, since he couldn't even keep water down for the first several hours he was there), Angus was feeling a lot better. He was also tired, irritated, and wanted to go home. But most importantly, Angus McDonald was _ on the case _.

The doctors had run a few tests, and the illness was _ not _ caused by a normal food poisoning pathogen. In fact, at Angus's urging (it had taken a lot of persuasion, begging, and puppy-dog eyes), the doctors had run a toxicology panel on him and had come up positive for a powerful emetic used by emergency rooms for poisoning cases. That had caused a stir, but it had only confirmed Angus's suspicions.

Taking a leaf out of his favorite Caleb Cleveland novels, as soon as Angus got home on Friday morning, he started putting together a clue sheet. His grandfather insisted that he couldn't go to school that day, which was fine. He had work to do.

_ List of suspicious events, in chronological order: _

  * _There was a power outage in the theater_
  * _Edward kicked the lantern off the stage, almost certainly on purpose_
  * _There was a tear in the curtains_
  * _My glasses were broken_
  * _Someone left an open can of soda in the stairwell, attracting ants (could have been an accident, but Mr Davenport is very good at reminding everyone never to bring food into the theater)_
  * _The car prop was tampered with so Barry and Lup would fall through it (when inspected, it was clear that the screws weren't in tight enough)_
  * _All of the light cues were erased_
  * _Lup was followed and locked into the props shed_
  * _Johann's bow was broken_
  * _Water was spilled on the stairs, and Magnus slipped and sprained his ankle_
  * _A breakaway bottle was switched for a real bottle, intended to hurt Barry and ended up hurting Taako accidentally_
  * _Lucretia was sent a threatening email_
  * _The food Taako cooked for the pre-show party was poisoned with an emetic, making half of the cast sick_

Angus sighed and glanced over his list again. It was difficult to narrow it down to a single suspect who could have done all of that. He sharpened his pencil and started writing again.

_ Several of the mishaps would have required a set of theater keys to perform: 1, 4, 6, 7, and 8 specifically. Others may have involved keys as well. Mr. Highchurch lost a set of keys before the show began. It could have been stolen and used for 1, 4, 6, and 7. But Mr. Davenport's keys specifically were taken and used to lock the props shed, and have been missing since. _

Suddenly, he paused. The part about the keys was odd. If the culprit had Merle's keys, why would they have needed to take a second set to lock Lup into the shed? There were several possible answers. Perhaps they lost the keys, or had left them at home. But there was another explanation, and Angus was quickly beginning to realize that it was the most likely.

As he had already suspected because the Vogue twins had been in the theater when Lup had been locked in the shed, more than one person (or pair of people, if Lydia and Edward had worked together) were separately conspiring to ruin the show. Angus had to admit, he had started making this list thinking that his observation about their alibi meant that one other person had to be doing it. That was a mistake. He should have known better. Bias and expectations were antithetical to good detective work.

But that begged the question: even if Lydia and Edward had done some of the things on the list, who else had possible motive to disrupt the show? Lydia was pissed that Lup had gotten the lead. Edward was angry at Barry for coming out of nowhere to do the same. That made sense. Who else might want to make the lives of the cast and crew miserable?

Angus really didn't like examining each and every one of the cast and crew for motive and hidden agendas. Caleb Cleveland usually discerned motive by observation of people he didn't know--the suspects in the books weren't usually his friends.

He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the theater after Lup had left, hoping to remember other people who hadn't left and therefore had an alibi. Angus was pretty sure that nobody had left the theater after Taako and Lup had…

_ Wait. _

Taako's voice rang through his memory._ "This is a fucking loch in kop, it's the last thing we fucking need. I need to go, I'll fix this tomorrow. Hey, Sazed? Fuck it, we aren't doing lights today, you can go too. Lup, I just need to go. Okay?" _ In his mind's eye, Angus saw Sazed linger by the theater door while the twins walked out and then followed a minute later. When he thought about it harder, he realized that Sazed had been standing right next to where Davenport hung his keys.

It wasn't conclusive evidence. But it was something worth looking into.

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Agnes McDagnes _

_ These texts have to stay between us for now, but I have to ask you something. _

_ To: Agnes McDagnes _

_ From: Taako _

_ HEY little dude glad to know ur still kickin _

_ that's a weird request and not suspicious at all. aight hit me _

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Agnes McDagnes _

_ Is there any reason you can think of that Sazed would want to hurt Lup and poison the cast and crew? _

Angus waited almost three hours for the next response.

_ To: Agnes McDagnes _

_ From: Taako _

_ I _

_ I had to think about this a lot. In all seriousness: yes. it's a hell of an accusation, ango, but yeah. _

_ he's always been kind of...jealous? kept hinting that maybe i should leave the show. i'd say something about how i was worried or didnt like what was happening and hed always say that i could let him take over _

_ Didn't think he was capable of actually doing stuff to try and make me leave, though. That's...a lot. _

_ He definitely had opportunity, huh? _

_ Holy shit, kid, I think you might be right. _

_ gonna be honest. idk what to do with this. what do we do with this? _

_ To: Taako _

_ From: Agnes McDagnes _

_ Don't worry. Leave it to me. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still @johannsviolin but I'm taking a break from tumblr at the moment. I'll probably be back at the end of the month, at least intermittently, but I'm finding that I read a lot more books without the app on my phone so I'll only be on desktop. But I won't stop posting here! Let me know what you thought of the chapter! I have some other TAZ stuff I'm thinking about posting, we'll see how that goes. Take care of yourselves! <3 ~Martin


	12. Closed and Open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while. hope ya didn't miss me too much. enjoy chapter 12! only one more to go! (assuming I can write it, lmao)

One problem (actually three, but who's counting?) had been solved, and _ so many more _ had popped right up.

Davenport called Lucretia at seven at night on Friday. That should have been opening night, but several cast members were still not doing well enough to perform, so it was postponed until Saturday.

"Lucretia, we have a development," he said by way of greeting.

She sat down in her desk chair, bracing herself. "Yeah?"

"Technically, this information isn't supposed to be released to students until Monday, but since we are opening the show tomorrow, you need to know now. We know who has been sabotaging the show, and all three of them have been...dealt with." The way Davenport said it made Lucretia think there was more to the story.

"Who won't be showing up at the theater tomorrow?" she asked carefully, wanting to phrase the question in a way he could answer.

"Lydia, Edward, and Sazed," he replied.

Lucretia exhaled slowly. "Okay." A ball of worry was settling in her stomach as the split second of relief faded. How were they going to replace Lydia and Edward's roles in the show? It was way too much for anyone to learn in 24 hours.

"Lydia and Edward will be back at school in two weeks," Davenport continued. "Sazed will not be returning. It’s thanks to little Angus that we know this, by the way."

She wanted to ask more questions, but she restrained herself. He probably wasn't allowed to tell her any more than that. "I think we should change call time tomorrow so we have more time to figure out what we want to do," she told him.

"I agree. I'll tell everyone to be at the theater at 1 p.m. Will you talk to them as well?"

Lucretia's phone buzzed in her hand and she glanced at it. Lup was calling her. "Yeah, I'll talk to them. Thanks for keeping me informed."

"You're very welcome."

"Goodbye." She switched over to answer Lup's call. "Hello?"

"Did you hear about this?" Lup asked.

"Um. Yes, I heard."

"Fucking _ Sazed _, I can't...but Taako's hit real hard. Hasn't said a word in hours. Krav came over to sit with him while I figured stuff out, but sheesh, Lucy...what are we going to do?"

Lucretia wished she had a good answer. "I'm not sure yet."

"Edward and Lydia both had _ big _ parts. Do you think we can find someone to play them?"

"Lup, I'm sorry, I just don't know. We'll all meet together tomorrow to talk about it. But I just--" She had to pause and take a breath so her voice didn't shake. "I really don't have any answers right now."

Lup paused. Softly, she said, "I know. It's okay. Whatever happens, we'll make it work."

"Is Taako alright?" Lucretia asked, changing the subject.

"He will be eventually. It's taking some time to sink in that everyone getting sick really wasn't his fault, but also that a guy he's been friends with for over two years secretly hated him enough to lock me in a shed and poison us," she replied.

"I'm not sure I really understand...why _ did _ he do it?" Lucretia asked.

"Um, hard to say? I think he was jealous. He wanted the attention, probably, and he's been bugging Taako for ages about letting him run a show by himself. No idea what made him snap. Some people are just...just…"

"Cruel," supplied Lucretia.

Lup laughed humorlessly. "Yep. That's the word."

"Will you be able to come tomorrow? Davenport and I were thinking we'd meet at the theater at 1," Lucretia said.

"We'll be there."

"You...you and Taako both?"

"Yeah. He's coming." Lup paused. "Hey, listen, Lucy. I've got this...feeling? That we'll figure out how to make the show work."

Lucretia didn't know that she had the same feeling, but she appreciated Lup trying to cheer her up. "Thanks. We'll do our best, I suppose. Whatever happens, happens."

"That's the spirit. See you tomorrow, then?"

"See you tomorrow." Lucretia put her phone aside.

It was 12:55 P.M. Lucretia paced the theater despite Merle, Davenport, and Barry’s efforts to convince her to sit down and calm down. More cast and crew members were arriving. Angus came right up to her, looked her in the eye, and hugged her. He let go quickly, looking a bit embarrassed. “We’ll figure it out, right?” he asked.

“_ You _ figured it out, Angus,” Lucretia told him. “You closed the case. Everything that happens now...it’s not nearly as important.”

He shrugged. “I guess we’ll see.” And he went and sat down on the floor.

Lup swept into the theater. “Okay, I’m here now, everything’s going to be fine!” she proclaimed loudly. It broke the tension, and everyone laughed.

“Thanks, Lup,” Lucretia said sincerely. “Okay, it...it looks like everyone’s here. As you’ve all probably learned, we are short three cast and crew. And you also probably know why that is, so...the question remains, how do we fill in their roles? I’m really looking for suggestions, here. I’m willing to make last second rewrites, but it’s you all who have to learn the changes.”

Of all people, Artemis Stirling was the first one to clear his throat and speak up. “If I may, Lucretia?”

Privately wary of whatever he had to say, Lucretia nodded.

“I know Edward’s part. I...I read lines with him enough times that I could probably be up and running with the blocking in a matter of a couple hours. The songs are slightly out of my range, but I can adapt them. And my current role would be easy to work around and write out,” he said.

Lucretia was surprised and a little impressed by how serious he sounded. “Are you sure, Artemis? It may not be easy.”

“I am aware. But it’s also necessary.”

A few “huh”s and murmurs filled the room. Lucretia didn’t hesitate before replying, “If you’re willing to take the responsibility, Artemis, the role is yours. Now, we do need to fill Lydia’s role as well. I’d do it myself, but as you all know, I can’t carry a tune to save my life.” There were some giggles, but nobody volunteered to step up to the task like Artemis had. Almost a full minute of silence passed.

“I don’t care how many times you say it, Lup, the answer is still _ no _!” Taako burst out, breaking the silence rather explosively and unexpectedly.

The only person in the room not confused, Lup replied immediately, “I’m just saying, you _ could _!” They lapsed back into silence, but somehow Lucretia could tell that the conversation wasn’t stopping. The twins stared at each other, Lup holding onto Taako’s wrist tightly. Nobody was quite sure what to do, so they didn’t do anything.

Then, just as abruptly as the first time, Taako stood up and said, “_ Fine _! Fucking fine, I’ll fucking play Lydia’s part. Happy, Lup?”

“Very happy,” Lup said with a grin.

Taako blew a forceful raspberry at her and turned to Lucretia. “Well? What do you say, Madame Director? Do I have to prove myself, or do I just get sent up there to live the fucking actor’s nightmare?”

Lucretia was even more taken aback by this than by Artemis’s offer. “You don’t have to _ prove _ yourself. You think you can do it?”

“Of fucking course I can do it,” Taako muttered.

“Then yes, go for it. I’ll need ten minutes to write Artemis’s previous character’s lines out, and then we can start rehearsal immediately.”

Taako turned to Ren. “You’re gonna run tech by yourself. Think you can handle it?”

“I can handle anything,” Ren replied confidently.

“Cool. Come to the booth, we’re having a crash course.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her up the stairs to the booth.

“Taako!” Lucretia called after him.

“What?”

“Thank you!”

He didn’t say anything, but Lucretia could see him trying to hide a smile.

_ To: Director Luce _

_ From: Ren _

_ Except for our headsets not working, all’s good in the booth. _

_ To: Ren _

_ From: Director Luce _

_ Taako just told me he’d fix them at intermission. Until then, booth and backstage can communicate through text _

_ To: Director Luce _

_ From: Ren _

_ And by booth and backstage, you mean just us and Lucas_

_ To: Ren _

_ From: Director Luce _

_ Yeah, exactly. Ready for places? _

_ To: Director Luce _

_ From: Ren _

_ Places! _

_ To: Ren _

_ From: Director Luce _

_ Thank you, places! _

_ To: Director Luce _

_ From: Ren _

_ Curtain. _

_ To: Ren _

_ From: Director Luce _

_ Thank you, curtain! “Where Luck Comes From” has officially opened. _

_ To: Director Luce _

_ From: Ren _

_ Case closed, show open. See you at intermission. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been sporadic, but y'know, I've been busy. The new semester started, plus I'm transferring back to a 4 year school in the fall so I had to deal with applications and admissions and scholarships and just general nonsense. Also, I've been leaning more towards original fiction, working on revising the novel I started four and a half years ago (!) trying to get it ready to be published. So thanks for sticking with me! Hope y'all are doing well! Love ya! <3 ~Martin


	13. Open and Closed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a while to finish this, because I couldn't figure out exactly what the ending should be. But I think I found a pretty good one. Enjoy! <3

Closing night. Last minute nerves. The bright lights. The audience laughing. Singing with her brother onstage for the last time. Brushing past Taako backstage, finding his hand just long enough to trace a circle and tap his palm.  _ Thank you _ . The final scene with Barry. The shininess in his eyes as the lights faded and the curtains closed before curtain call.

Taking a bow. Seeing Taako rush offstage as soon as he could, nearly knocking Johann over to meet Kravitz in the orchestra pit and kiss him. Everyone heading out to the lobby one final time to greet the audience. 

But Lup didn't go out to the lobby. Somehow, she had forgotten to let go of Barry's hand after taking their bow. Somehow, she kept not letting go. "Hey, Barry," she said quietly, standing with him at the edge of the stage while everyone else left. "Let's talk, okay?"

He looked at her and nodded. "Yeah. Let's talk."

They still didn't let go of one another's hands as they went backstage. Lup shooed Lucas away so she and Barry could sit down on the prop couch in the dimly red-lit scene shop. "Some show, huh?" Lup said after a minute, when it became evident that sitting in silence any longer would cross the threshold into weird.

"Sure was," he agreed. "Turned out better than we probably could have hoped for."

"Glad you did it?" asked Lup.

"Of course. Are you?"

"Undoubtedly," she replied, and then she was kissing him. Warmth flooded her cheeks. Her stomach flipped. For the briefest moment, she was terrified that she was doing the wrong thing. But then Barry was kissing her back, and his free hand that wasn't still holding hers came up to gently cup her cheek and keep her face exactly where it was.

Both of them pulled away slowly at the same time. They opened their eyes and gazed at each other, wordless, almost breathless.

"I'm glad your stage kisses don't feel like that, or I would have forgotten every single one of my lines," Barry said finally.

Lup laughed. She put her head down on his shoulder and his arms went around her. His dark shirt was still warm from being underneath all of the stage lights. For a minute, she just listened to his breathing. "Should we talk about this?" she asked in a voice close to a whisper.

"Probably," he said, just as hushed.

"I like you a lot," she said.

"I like  _ you _ a lot," Barry echoed.

"I liked kissing you."

"Want to do it again?"

"Many, many times," Lup answered. And so they kissed again, for a while. Barry seemed to like touching her face, and she kept her hands on his waist. "How long have you…?" she asked between kisses.

"Liked you? Since I saw you. But  _ really _ , when you came over and...and made sure I was okay, after the car fell apart," he said. "You?"

"No idea when it started, honestly. I think I realized it when I saw you reading lines with June, and she kept stumbling over some words and you just...didn't let her give up, and then you were so sweet when she finally got it," Lup said. She hadn't identified that moment until just now. "And then when you drove me and Taako home after...the shed." She wanted to kiss him again, so she did. After a moment or two, she pulled away to laugh.

"What is it?" Barry asked, smiling but clearly not sure what was funny.

"I told Lucretia recently that it would probably take me fifty years to make a move on someone I liked. Guess it's more like two months, as it turns out."

Barry laughed as well then. " _ Did _ you make a move? I thought I leaned in first."

"I thought I did," Lup said.

"Well, I guess you might have moved a little faster, but I was definitely thinking about it before," he conceded. "Lup, can I take you out sometime? Lunch this weekend, or maybe a coffeeshop?"

"Only if I can kiss you again," she said with a grin.

"Then or now?"

"Both?"

"Both sounds great." Barry kissed her. Each kiss was better than the previous. Lup wondered briefly how long that would last. She couldn't see it ending anytime soon. She found Barry's hand again and held tight to it and never wanted to let go.

Eventually, they realized that they'd have to go out and see everybody before they started striking the set unless they wanted someone to walk in on them. They made it into the lobby just in time to hear Lucretia say, "We're leaving strike for the theater tech kids. Everybody go home and get some sleep!"

"Now you're talking," said Taako. He caught Lup's eye, saw how close she was standing to Barry, and raised his eyebrows. She winked.

"I'll call you tomorrow," Barry told her quietly.

"Not before noon, please--I'm planning on sleeping as long as I can," she replied, smiling at him. "But yes, call. Or I will."

Barry leaned towards her like he was going to kiss her again, then thought better of it. Lup rolled her eyes and hugged him.

"There'll be plenty of time for more kissing," she whispered into his ear. As she pulled back, she could see him blushing.

The cast and crew and audience slowly trickled out of the building. Lup watched Barry leave. Someone bumped her arm gently. "You gonna tell me what all that was?" Taako said.

"All what?" Lup grinned.

"Uh-huh. I still can't believe you really do have a thing for nerds."

"Maybe just one nerd," Lup said, and laughed as her brother pretended to gag as he backed away, heading over to talk to Magnus. Lup turned to Lucretia. She had leaned against a wall, a short distance away from everyone else. She looked very tired. "Heya, Lucy," greeted Lup.

Lucretia smiled tiredly. "Hi."

Lup held her arms out. "Time for hugs?" she offered.

"Yep." For a minute, Lucretia was silent as she let Lup give her a warm hug. "I'm...glad this is over," she mumbled eventually.

"I know. Me too. But I'm glad we did it."

"I will be someday. If that makes sense."

Lup nodded.

"Right now, I...I just want to go home. Go to sleep without worrying. Turn off my phone and just...sleep for the whole day."

"You deserve it," Lup said honestly. "You really deserve a break."

"Yeah. I'm going to go home now, Davenport actually said he was going to drive me so I wouldn't walk in the dark," said Lucretia.

"Y'know me and Taako woulda given you a ride, right?"

"I know you would have. It's okay, really." Lucretia squeezed her hand. "Goodnight, Lup. See you on Monday."

"See ya Monday."

Lucretia took a deep breath. "I'm not going to direct the spring play, I think. Let people know, would you?"

Lup promised she would, and gave her another hug before letting her go over to Davenport and leave the theater. Magnus and Julia were leaving, too, hand in hand. Only she, Taako, Kravitz, and Merle were left. Merle was locking up.

"Goodnight, Taako," said Kravitz. He kissed Taako's cheek. "By the way, I think you did pretty great up there on stage."

Taako turned a bit red. "Never again," he insisted. "It's horrifying. Lup, I don't know how you do it so easily."

"You just get used to it," she said lightly. "C'mon, Ko. We should head out, or I'll fall asleep at the wheel and it's only a three minute drive. Night, Krav."

"See you, Lup!" Kravitz headed the opposite direction from the twins as they left the building, towards the other end of the parking lot.

On the short drive home, Taako seemed to be deep in thought. "You know," he said after a minute, "the more I think about it, the more I think you and Barold are gonna be real good together. In a weird sorta way."

"Gee, thanks."

"I mean it. I mean, I think he's great. A good friend, a pretty good actor. Definitely a good student, if the bio teachers can be trusted. Though apparently he has some weird fascination with like, cloning stuff and bringing things back from the dead."

Lup laughed. "Did you ask every teacher for dirt on him or something?"

"Hey, gotta make sure my sister only has the very best in boyfriends!"

"He's not my--" Lup was blushing. "Shut up."

"Were you or were you not kissing him backstage after the show?" Taako inquired.

Lup pulled into their driveway. "Maybe. Why would you think that?"

"The lipstick color he had on before the show and the color when he came out into the lobby afterwards were very different colors," Taako teased.

"Fair enough." Lup unlocked the front door, smiling. "He's gonna call me tomorrow."

"Yuck, no more details. I call first shower!" Taako rushed past her towards the bathroom.

After Lup had wrestled him at the bathroom door for a minute so she could at least grab some makeup wipes, she sat on her bed listening to the water run with her eyes closed. The closing-night adrenaline had faded, leaving her exhausted. She washed her face, realized she wasn't going to be awake long enough to shower that night, and got into her pajamas. She had just enough energy to pull the blankets down and collapse.

After a while, the shower stopped running. The bedroom light turned off a minute later, and the covers were pulled up to her shoulders.

"Nigh', 'ko," Lup mumbled.

"See you in the morning," he replied softly.

_ To: Lup-de-Lup _

_ From: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ Hey OKAY so ik we arent supposed to be worried abt anything now the show is closed BUT _

_ Lucretia hasnt answered my texts All Day? _

_ To: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ From: Lup-de-Lup _

_ Not to worry, my friend, she mentioned last night that she was gonna go home, turn off her phone, and sleep the day away _

_ To: Lup-de-Lup _

_ From: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ that makes sense!! also good for her, she deserves it _

_ To: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ From: Lup-de-Lup _

_ that's what I said! also she doesbt want to direct the spring play _

_ To: Lup-de-Lup _

_ From: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ thats super fair actually tbh, let her take a break. how bout you? you doin okay w everything? _

_ To: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ From: Lup-de-Lup _

_ Yeah, m doin okay. love u maggi <3 say hi to jules for me _

_ To: Lup-de-Lup _

_ From: Lumberjacked Mango _

_ Will do. say hi to bluejeans for me! _

It was three and a half years after  _ Where Luck Comes From _ had closed. Lup and Taako had spent their first two years out of high school at the local community college, working their way through general education courses as cheaply as they could before applying to universities. They each got nearly full-ride scholarships at two different schools which were only a few miles away from each other, which relieved them both to no end. If they had been faced with the possibility of having to move away from each other for school, Lup wasn’t sure they could have done it. Luck was on their side for this one.

And as luck would have it, Barry was also transferring to the same school that Taako had gotten into, a prestigious STEM college. Against all the odds of high school relationships, he and Lup were still together. Kravitz and Taako were, too. Kravitz was going to a music college an hour away and studying to become an orchestra conductor. 

They had kept in contact with most of their high school friends, of course. Lucretia was deep in an intense journalism program, and was also double majoring in creative writing. Magnus was working with Julia’s father Steven to start up their own independent carpentry business back home. Lup had heard a rumor that Sloane was doing a lot of slightly illegal car racing, which sounded about right. (It was also mildly hilarious, because Hurley was studying criminal justice.) Johann was first violin in an orchestra which competed on the national level.

And Angus? Well, Angus was the reason that Lup found herself back in Faerun High late that spring. It was the day of graduation for Angus and June both, and they had specifically asked Lup, Taako, Barry, and Kravitz to be there. Leaving Taako to complain to Kravitz about the heat, Lup grabbed Barry’s hand. “C’mon,” she urged, and tugged him towards the theater.

“Lup, what are we doing?” Barry asked. “I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be locked.”

“Nah, you kidding? Merle will be setting up the ceremony, but Dav’s probably hiding in there and letting the theater kids stay with him so they don’t have to go to graduation prep. That’s where me and Taako were.”

“Is that why I couldn’t find you until after we had started getting in line to walk?” Barry said, astonished.

Lup grinned. “Sure is.” The back door to the theater was indeed unlocked. Almost as soon as she stepped inside, she found herself getting hugged very enthusiastically by Angus, who was a good foot taller than he had been the last time she had seen him.

“Lup! You actually came!”

“Course we did, kiddo!” She extracted herself from the hug and pointed back towards the parking lot. “Taako’s out there, if you wanna say hi to him.”

Without another word, Angus sprinted out the door.

“Think Capnport is in the booth?” Barry wondered.

“Let’s go see.” Lup started walking up the stairs towards the booth, but she didn’t get far before a group of underclassmen who had been in the theater seats spotted her and Barry.

“Oh, my god,” one of them gasped. “Are you Lup and Barry?!”

Lup heard Barry make a flustered squeak next to her. “We sure are. What, our reputations precede us?” she asked smoothly.

The kid giggled nervously. “Kinda! Everyone in theater knows the  _ Where Luck Comes From _ story. Angus and June will never tell anyone exactly what happened!”

“Did the tech guy  _ really _ try to poison everyone?” another student asked.

“I heard that Angus almost died!”

“And that the girl who was directing got death threats sent to her house!”

Lup burst out laughing. “Oh, man. Well, you’re not  _ entirely _ wrong, but I think it’s probably better that the details are so blurred. Gives it an air of mystery.”

“Did you really get locked in a shed? I didn’t think that part was real,” one of them blurted out.

She felt Barry squeeze her hand. She squeezed back reassuringly and just winked at the kid. “Like I said, better to let the story fade.”

“Nothing exciting ever happens anymore,” the first student said glumly.

“That’s a good thing. Believe me,” Barry said, “you should tell yourself how lucky you are.” Lup choked back laughter.

“Man,” sighed the youngest looking student. “You guys are legends.”

Lup managed to get away from their adoring fans and walked with Barry up to the booth. Before they stopped in to say hi to Davenport, who was sitting cross-legged in his chair, she tugged Barry back behind the spotlight station and whispered in his ear, “Hear that, babe? We’re  _ legends _ .”

  
  


** _CURTAIN_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this one! Though I might eventually write a few more things in this universe, because there were so many characters and I feel like I couldn't do them all justice in the wrapping-up. But maybe not, maybe I'll branch out into other AUs! Either way, stay tuned!
> 
> I've been spending most of my time lately working on my original novel, which I'm vaguely hoping to publish in the next year and a half, so updates here might be sporadic. But I am also relistening to Balance (just finished Eleventh Hour), so I'm finding a lot more inspiration around this cluttered up brain of mine! I hope everyone out there is staying safe. I'm @argonaut--keene on tumblr if you want to chat! <3 ~Martin

**Author's Note:**

> Again, I'm @johannsviolin on tumblr for TAZ content! Also, all comments/kudos/bookmarks are highly cherished. <3 ~Martin


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